


Tumblrfic collection

by Morcai



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014), Hellsing, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, Sense8 (TV), Sword Art Online
Genre: Asexual Character, Bodyswap, Chronic Illness, Domesticity, Dreamwalking, Dysfunctional Family, Empathy, Experimental Style, Gen, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Mild Gore, Multi, Multiplicity/Plurality, Murder, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Spirit World, Time Travel, chapters are unrelated unless otherwise specified, child endangerment, flirting via fighting, hotwiring cars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-05-01 02:49:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 49
Words: 23,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5189291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morcai/pseuds/Morcai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>vaguely cleaned up versions of tumblrfic, with the exception of one or two wide-ranging aus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5927

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ahoderahayato asked for some 5927 and who was I to refuse?

The thing about the Tenth, Hayato thinks, taking a last drag and stubbing out his cigarette, is that he’s entirely unaware of the effect he has on people. It’s kind of adorable, really. He’s so used to failure that he clearly has lost some perspective. That’s the only way Hayato can parse the way that Tsuna somehow  _completely misses_  his entourage of besotted one-time enemies, even now.  
  
Hayato has lived the process, he knows what he’s talking about. Not that most of the members of said entourage would admit to being besotted, but like he said, he’s lived it, he knows what’s going on.   
  
Slouching further over his motorcycle and lighting another cigarette, he keeps a wary eye on his boss. Tsuna insisted on doing this without Guardians looming, which had put everyone from Lambo to the Ninth into fits. Really, for someone who doesn’t notice the way his enemies have of falling in love with him, the Tenth trusts in it entirely too much. Still, it seems to be working out, judging by the way the Ricci’s new baby capo is staring and nodding.  
  
Negotiations finished, the Tenth smiles in that way he has, and waves before tucking his hands into his pockets—Lambo would have a heart attack, the cow’s grown up delicate about fashion—and saunters off.

Saunters right over to where Hayato’s sprawling over his bike, trying to be inconspicuous. Fuck. _Why_  did he let Reborn talk him into this?  
  
Well, Reborn, of course. And it’s not like Hayato was all that jazzed about letting his boss chat up the boss of an enemy  _famiglia_  without backup. So, here he is, right where his boss told him not to be, and Tsuna’s got that dangerously amiably smile on his face.  
  
When Tsuna stops, a couple feet short of the bike, Hayato forces a smile and says, too brightly, “Hey boss! Fancy seeing you here.”

Tsuna sighs and steps closer, snatching the cigarette out of Hayato’s mouth. Hayato would be sad about losing it, but Tsuna just takes a drag and hands it back.  
  
“Boss?” he says. Tsuna doesn’t usually smoke—only when everything’s about to go to shit, really. Most of the Guardians do the same, which is probably all Hayato’s fault.  
  
Tsuna sighs, blowing out a cloud of smoke, and says, suddenly sounding exhausted, “Everybody talks too much.”  
  
That’s never a good sign. The Vongola have a lot of things that shouldn’t be talked about. “What are we worried about this time?”  
  
The look in the boss slants Hayato’s way is wry. ”Other  _famiglia_  throwing their eligible daughters at me?”  
  
Ah. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Hayato shrugs. “Unless they’re better with explosives and a Storm flame than I am, why worry? They’ll get bored eventually.”  
  
Tsuna laughs and tilts his head back to stare at the sky. Hayato takes the moment to examine his boss. Italy agrees with Tsuna, turning him loose and easy in his skin like he never is in Japan.  
  
“Well,” the boss says at last, turning his eyes from the sky to Hayato. “That’s one thing cleared up. Now, why  _are_  you here, when I asked you not to come?”  
  
Hayato squirms for a moment under Tsuna’s eyes, trying to find a way to absolve himself of blame without putting it all on Reborn, because Reborn will find out and  _kill him_. Eventually Tsuna just shakes his head and leans down to brush a kiss over Hayato’s lips. It’s more blatant than the boss usually is in public, but if people are talking, that explains it.  
  
"Get going,” Tsuna says. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”  
  
Hayato thinks about protesting, but there’s a look in Tsuna’s eye that says he’s not going to give on this. Instead, he sighs and nods.  
  
Tsuna smiles and waves him off.  
  
Reborn beats him black and blue for leaving his boss in what’s nominally enemy territory when Hayato returns to the mansion without Tsuna. But like he said, everyone who tries to kill the Tenth ends up besotted, and at dinner Tsuna’s not quite succeeding at hiding the hickeys with the collar of his shirt, so it’s a grand success all around.


	2. time travel: adult tsuna meeting child mukuro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lovemesomewakamole asked for Tsuna meeting baby Mukuro

Something is different. Rokudo knows it, can  _feel it_. Something has changed in the vast silence of the dead. There is something quiet and fierce and strange here, suddenly, that has never been here before.  
  
Blood squelches under his feet, half-dried into something tacky and weirdly jelly-like, as he investigates. He bounces on his toes, a little, in one of the bigger pools, just to appreciate the sensation.  
  
The trident is still clutched in his fingers, and he draws comfort from it. It’s been his companion for a long time, in ways none of the Estraneo could have understood. He can feel the gazes of several of the other children of the family, the other test subjects, from the shadows, but right now the  _presence_  is more important. He can’t tell if it’s dangerous or just another predator passing through, with no interest in them. He needs to  _know_.  
  
The only thing he can feel from it is the vast power, tamed to hand.  
  
He keeps walking, his bare feet quiet against the floor, and eventually, not much later, he finds the source of the presence. A man is standing in one of the intersections, where corridors meet, one of dozens of identical crossroads.  
  
The man is tall, or at least taller than Rokudo is, and he’s examining the halls with his hands tucked into his pockets. The suit he’s wearing looks immaculate, and Rokudo, suddenly conscious of his ragged tee shirt and shorts,  _wants_ , with terrible ferocity. He  _wants_ , and he can’t  _have_ , not even within a fake reality, because his head is full of white noise and pain, and he can’t find the power to bring an illusion so complex into being.  
  
He steps closer, curiosity overcoming caution, and the man notices him. Amber eyes widen and Rokudo can’t understand what crosses the man’s face, but he crouches down, until he is no longer so much taller than Rokudo is. There’s orange glinting in his eyes now, and Rokudo approaches, because he’s not sure who this man is, and he may have power singing around him, but Rokudo has the trident still in a white-knuckled grip, and the man is unarmed. From barely a few feet away, the outcome of any fight is easy to predict.  
  
“Who are you?” he asks, as he walks forward, and the man sighs a little, a humorless little smile quirking his lips.  
  
“I’m…a friend, I suppose,” he says, and there’s something deeply, self-depricatingly ironic in his tone. Rokudo tilts his head.  
  
“Whose?” he asks, because this man is a stranger to the compound, or Rokudo would know the way he makes the air sing.  
  
“Yours, in a way,” the man says, and Rokudo frowns. He has no friends.   
  
“What does that mean?” he asks, because there’s something missing, he can tell and it makes him angry.  
  
“It’s complicated.”  
  
Rokudo’s frown deepens, and his fingers tighten on his trident. “Fine. What does  _that_  mean?”  
  
The man laughs quietly, and then shrugs. “You’ll understand in a few years, I think. But for now…a bit of advice?”  
  
He seems to be asking permission, and Rokudo shrugs. “What?”  
  
The man brushes his thumb over Rokudo’s brow, leaving something that feels like it heats right down through his  _bones_ , and says, his voice oddly intent, “Not everything has to be a war, Mukuro.”  
  
Rokudo blinks because  _what does that mean_ and  _what did you just call me_ , and the man checks his watch. “Not much time,” he murmurs, and stands up. Looking over the hallways, he inclines his head down one, and says, “Be good to them, too, okay? They’ll depend on you more than you know.”  
  
Rokudo  _doesn’t understand_ , but before he can ask what the stranger meant, a cloud of pink smoke emerges from nowhere, and he’s gone.  
  
When Rokudo makes his way down the hallway the man indicated, he will find two boys, who will introduce themselves as Ken and Chikusa.  
  
Without properly understanding why, he will say his name is Mukuro.


	3. mukuro and xanxus, meeting in dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> damebubble asked for Mukuro and Xanxus meeting in the dreams Xanxus has while frozen.

This dream is different from the usual ones. Normally, Xanxus finds himself in ice or in fire and either way he is burning, too busy screaming to take in the scenery.  
  
This time, there is nothing but a too-blue lake, grass that is too green to be anything but somehow fake, and a single, perfectly manicured willow tree.  
  
Xanxus hates it, wants to burn it to nothing around him, to destroy all of its carefully tamed perfection, but if he destroys this place it’s back to fire or ice, and he is so very tired of screaming. He’s been screaming for a long time, years maybe. Decades, centuries. Who knows, maybe the old man is dead already, and Xanxus is now nothing but another skeleton in the vast Vongola closet.  
  
“Well, well, well,” intrudes a voice like an oilslick, like poison. “Who do we have here?”  
  
Xanxus turns, and sees a teenager, dressed in a white shirt and black slacks, hands tucked into his pockets and venomous amusement on his face.  
  
“None of your damn business,” Xanxus snarls, and his voice is rough, his throat sore from so much screaming.  
  
The teenager clicks his tongue, and shakes his head. “This is  _my_  dream,” he says, and all but vanishes, reappearing only inches from Xanxus’ face. “ _Everything_  here is my business.”

In the boy’s hand is a trident, and quick as thought, he slashes open the back of Xanxus’ hand.  
  
Xanxus gathers himself to attack in return, but the cut pulses, and something reaches out for his _mind._  Xanxus roars his defiance, calls all of his fury and his Flame, and turns it loose. He will burn for eternity before he allows  _anyone_  to ensnare him.  
  
His Wrath races through the grass, consumes the willow tree, evaporates the lake, and Xanxus feels the dream fall to ashes around him. He lets it, falls through the ash and feels cold embrace him once more, feels it stifle his flame.  _Better_ , he thinks, and bares his teeth against the pain.  _Better than being controlled_.

  
  
Behind him, Rokudo Mukuro sighs, and leans on his trident for a moment. A tool like that, rage and power like nothing else in the world, would have been perfect. Alas, he's still alone, and his world is smoldering.

That, at least, is easily fixed. A single tap of his trident against the scorched earth, and too-green grass begins to grow. The lake once again fills with deep blue water, and the willow tree buds and blooms supernaturally fast, until it appears just as it always had.

  
“What a mess you left behind,” the illusionist says, clicking his tongue “And I had just gotten everything how I liked it.” He frowns a little, tapping one toe against the dream’s earth. It sings with the fury of Flame now, and it will take months of work to undo the damage, to recreate the quiet meadow’s soporific effect. It will be months more before he can do anything truly terrible to dreamers who wander in.  
  
Mukuro clicks his tongue again, and reaches out. The intruder is no longer within his reach, but he brushes over Chikusa, Ken and Nagi, before wandering through his agents further afield. He has never liked being taken by surprise, and with his stronghold still under repair, he has fewer options than before. Vigilance is his watchword today.


	4. mukuro, introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon asked for Mukuro introducing his partner to the other guardians.

Mukuro is used to working alone, really. Ken and Chikusa, in this life, are an anomaly. It’s strange, to have them, but he does what he must and uses them as ruthlessly as he uses himself.

(They read more into it–affection in his keeping them close, in his return to Vendicare. It’s not kindness, really, but practicality. Either of them would shatter irrepairably if imprisoned once more. Mukuro is not nearly so bound to the physical illusion of being as they are. Imprisonment will be a familiar nightmare.)

He stalls, he lets the Vindice fasten a seal over his eye and chain his hands and sedate him, and kicks himself free of his body, like a snake shedding his skin.

(After all, this is something that the Vindice do not understand: He is not the only version of himself in this life. He will make himself at home soon enough.)

He wanders, and he sculpts and he searches and he gardens, and one day he turns around, and she has found him.

This other him is a fragile girl in a white dress, one eye hidden under bandages, her abdomen wavering under her clothes as she accepts her death, in spite of how much she rages against it.

Mukuro has other uses for her, and she agrees, rejects death, lets him teach her to waltz, learns to step forward and back as he leads their dance. She’s so very raw and unformed, young Nagi, and he marvels at what she will become.

When Iemitsu Sawada hands her a ring and speaks only to Mukuro, he laughs at the man behind her eyes, and she closes her fingers around it with grim determination.

The night of their battle comes, and Mukuro whispers  _break a leg_  to her as she enters Namimori Middle like she was never injured. It itches at him, a little, to unveil her to others when he’s not yet finished his masterwork. But he is carving her to match a set he does not own, and if he doesn’t test the fit early and often, he will only make errors.

(She introduces herself with his language and his laugh and the name he gave her, and Mukuro smiles like a sabre curve, thousands of kilometres away. His partner, his masterpiece, his other self, he is so proud and he savors the reactions like fine wine. She will never be what they expect of her.)


	5. Tsuna/Xanxus, car broke down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked for 27X, 'car broke down'

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tsuna says. “We’ve got roboticists and inventors working decades ahead of current science, and you’re telling me we have no decent mechanics?”

He pauses, listening to the person on the other end of the line for a moment, and then sighs in exasperation.

“At least I wasn’t heading anywhere in particular today. Just send someone out here to pick us and the car up before we freeze to death.”

He listens for another moment before snapping his phone shut and pinching the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt to stave off a headache.

“Genii, genii everywhere,” he mutters, “and not a drop of sense.”

A snort of laughter answers him, and a warm weight settles on his shoulders. A glance reveals it to be Xanxus’ coat, and Tsuna can’t help smiling.

“I’m not actually going to freeze to death,” he says, a little teasing.

Xanxus just arches an unimpressed eyebrow, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Pipsqueaks like you need all the help you can get,” he replies, and leans back against the car door.

Tsuna joins him, perching on the hood of the car. They’ve got an hour to kill, at least, before anyone shows up.

“At least we got that peace and quiet, finally,” Tsuna murmurs, drawing Xanxus’ coat tighter around him. He’s rewarded with another genuine laugh, and he smiles to himself.


	6. hayato/tsuna/takeshi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked for hayato/tsuna/takeshi

It sometimes feels like it should have been harder, Hayato thinks, his fingers curled loosely around Tsuna’s wrist. Like it should have been a mess of ugly jealousy and tightrope walking and miscommunications.

It really wasn’t.

Maybe it’s because Tsuna is cheerfully mercenary when it comes to the people he’s decided he wants around him (witness: Xanxus, Spanner, Mukuro, the entire Shimon family). Maybe it’s because Hayato and Takeshi learned their lesson about sharing in a future that never was, through relentless application of Lightning flame. Maybe it’s just because things have already been hard enough for all of them.

“Stop thinking so hard, Hayato,” Takeshi says sleepily, rolling over and resting his cheek on Hayato’s shoulder. “We’re fine.”

But they almost  _weren’t_ , Hayato wants to say, that’s the point. His thumb is resting over the pulse-point on Tsuna’s wrist and he can  _hear_ the fucking flatline like it wasn’t two weeks ago, even with the flutter of Tsuna’s heartbeat under his fingers.

It took  _hours_ , and Reborn switching in after Ryohei exhausted himself, for anyone to be willing to even move Tsuna off that floor, let alone take him to a place with fucking  _equipment_.

“We’re fine,” Takeshi repeats, looping an arm over Hayato’s waist, hand resting delicately against Tsuna’s stomach, thumb brushing over bare skin as Tsuna's chest rises and falls with the easy rhythm of his breathing.

Hayato closes his eyes and lets out a slow sigh. Takeshi has this annoying coping habit of saying things like he repeats it enough, it’ll come true.

“You’re both worrying too much,” Tsuna says, and his voice is warm and rough with sleep. “I’m okay. I promise. I’d have stayed in medical if I wasn’t.”

Hayato winces slightly, and Takeshi laughs silently, and whispers “Busted,” against his shoulder.

Still, if Tsuna promises…

Hayato lets his eyes close again, and focuses on the slow, steady pulse against his fingers as he lets himself fall asleep.


	7. sense8 cross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked for a sense8 crossover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because the author is lazy and hasn't watched the show, liberties were taken with sense8 structure. Also I basically wrote the cluster I thought would be funniest/most useful. Members are Tsuna, Xanxus, Bianchi, Byakuran, Spanner, Dino, Adelheid and Fran.
> 
> Being a cluster has successfully forestalled the Cradle Affair because I don't even want to try to figure out how much damage Xanxus being frozen would do to his clustermates.

Bianchi laughs for hours when Reborn asks her to come to Japan to help him teach the Vongola heir. When the rest of the cluster asks what she thinks is so funny, she lets them all borrow her eyes to see the missive, and grins at the irritation from half of her companions.

 _Suck it, bitches,_  she tells Dino, Byakuran and Xanxus, who have no freedom to hunt down their younger clustermates. All three of them respond with bursts of profanity that only make her laugh harder.

The first time she meets Tsuna, she gives him a poisoned soda, and leaves him behind, whispering into his mind,  _careful, it’s poisoned._

The whine of  _seriously, Bianchi?_  makes her laugh as she speeds on her way. He’s like a second little brother, one she didn’t hurt or have to smuggle out of her Family’s estate, one she  _can_  tease with her talents.

———

When Dino shows up, completely without warning, she knows it’s his revenge. Xanxus, who’s riding along with her mind as a way to avoid paperwork, swears up a storm when she sees him, and Bianchi tucks away several new phrases against future need.

Dino catches her eye behind Reborn’s back and winks.  _Suck it, bitches_ , he says, in deliberate mimicry, and Bianchi has never wanted to laugh while murdering someone so much. Xanxus suggests methods, and Byakuran, in his typically creepy way, idly comments on murder techniques of the alternate worlds he sees these days.

It’s a little worrying, Byakuran’s new talent, but they’re all doing their best to keep him grounded, to remind him that  _this_  world is the one that he belongs to, the one that matters. Fran’s deadpan sarcasm whenever the genius starts wandering off seems to be grounding him pretty well. So does Adelheid hopping into his body for his combat training. Byakuran complains about the bruises, but Bianchi knows it makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside to know that she cares.

( _Does not!_ Byakuran complains.  _I could barely get out of bed for breakfast yesterday! That's not caring. That's willful deprivation of marshmallows._

Suzuki just grins, and Bianchi doesn't have to see her little sister to know there are far too many teeth in that smile.)

Spanner, on the other hand, keeps getting lost in thought trying to brainstorm a way to create a concrete reminder whenever Byakuran starts wandering. The only reason  _that_  genius hasn’t starved to death is Tsuna hopping over to cook for him and make him eat.

—————

She’s shadowing Tsuna when the explosion happens, and that CEDEF kid who was always following Iemitsu around is thrown into Tsuna, Superbi Squalo hard on his heels, sword out and teeth bared.

Tsuna really shouldn’t absolutely  _light up_  with glee when an angry swordsman attempts murder right in front of him. Clearly this is a failing that’s the cluster’s fault. Bianchi hides a grin though, and thinks _you sneaky bastard_  at Xanxus, who just preens back at her.

There’s a split second of confusion, and the CEDEF kid tries to haul Tsuna off.

 _Go with it_ , Xanxus encourages, and Bianchi can practically hear Tsuna rolling his eyes at their ersatz elder brother’s sense of humor.

They’re not running for long though, before Superbi catches up, and Tsuna snarls his irritation at the CEDEF kid trying to defend him, and getting thrown though a wall.  _Isn’t this my fight?_ he asks, a little petulant, as his Guardians suddenly jump in, and are immediately defeated.

 _Honestly_ , he says, as they’re thrown away from him.  _Great kids, no sense of what’s a threat_.

Bianchi muffles a laugh behind her hand.

Suzuki snickers pointedly at him.  _Free field of fire now, though_ , she points out, and Tsuna mentally awards her a point, before he just  _lights up_ , bright and burning with his Dying Will.

Superbi still beats his ass, of course, but it’s less pathetic than it could have been.

 _Don’t worry too much_ , Byakuran says cheerfully, as Tsuna’s thrown across the square for the second time.  _You just need to not die. Fakes aren’t worth that much. They’re pretty fakes though._

 _Should you be telling him that, marshmallow fairy?_  Fran asks, and Bianchi nearly bites her hand off trying to stifle laughter. Fran’s epithets only grow more creative over time, and with exposure to Xanxus. The time he called Suzuki the Stuffed Tit Fairy Princess is a treasured memory, and it was well worth the headache from the screaming.

 _Not like this is a real disagreement,_  Dino says, not even phased,  _right, Xanxus?_

Xanxus just laughs, as Superbi departs with a small box full of half-rings.

 _What do you say, two weeks?_  Dino says, and Xanxus nods, grinning one of his unsettling grins.

Tsuna sighs. A _wesome_ , he says, and he sounds tired.  _Two weeks to train a bunch of civilians to go up against the independent assassination squad._ Why _did I let you talk me into this, again?_

Byakuran grins.  _Without you, the game isn’t nearly as much fun, though!_

Spanner trips him.


	8. Xanxus/Squalo, domesticity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ahoderahayato asked for xanxus and squalo being domestic

Squalo sprawls across the counter, knocking metal knuckles against the stone as he watches Xanxus, who’s hauling chunks of meat out of the fridge and regarding them with a vaguely professional air of disdain.

He feels both entertained and almost offended that he didn’t know that the boss could cook. Also a lot like the boss is a gigantic  _asshole_ , forcing whoever’s cooking back at base to cater to his ridiculous whims when he can cook for his  _goddamn self_.

Honestly though, he’s mostly irritated that he didn’t know this kitchen was  _here_ , or he’d have made a lot more use of it over the last few years. He’s gone hungry too many times when he and Xanxus have had to stay at the main house and Xanxus has stormed out of meals. With reason, but still. This is ridiculous.

Admittedly, he thinks, as Xanxus pulls out various items he doesn’t recognize, the Boss is clearly more familiar with this kitchen. Squalo would probably have already set something on fire by now.

(There’s a reason that Varia headquarters stocks mostly easy-to-make shit and only part of it is that they keep fuck-awful schedules.)

“Stop being a fucking wimp, shark trash,” Xanxus growls from over the stove, and Squalo taps his knuckles against the counter again, rolling his eyes. It’s almost an invitation. Not that such things ever mean someone’s  _safe._

“Didn’t know you could cook, Boss,” he says, testing the waters of Xanxus’ temper.

A long pause, as Xanxus drops the meat into a pan with a sizzle, and pokes at it with a fork he grabbed without even looking for it.

“Fucking tutors couldn’t find me in the kitchens,” he says finally. “But the Martelli bitch wouldn’t let me stay if I wasn’t going to make myself useful.”

Squalo stills for a moment. For all the insults attached to her name, Xanxus sounds fonder of this Martelli than Squalo’s ever heard him.

“What tutors were you avoiding?” Squalo asks eventually, because if Xanxus is in a sharing mood, Squalo has no compunctions trying to get everything he can out of his boss.

Besides, Xanxus  _likes_ knowing things. That’s the only reason Squalo can think that he has for learning Bel’s mother tongue, which is mind-bendingly complicated and sounds like a dying cat.

Well, that and being able to answer Bel in it when the uppity brat starts swearing at all and sundry in a language he thinks they don’t know. Still, its also making Xanxus’ handwriting even  _worse_ , now that he’s adding a fourth alphabet. Squalo had a bad enough time when the Arabic showed up, but now it’s _worse_.

“The fucking old man wanted me to learn dancing,” Xanxus snarls, leaning against the counter and turning to look at Squalo. Squalo can’t help staring back at him.

“ _Dancing_ ,” Xanxus repeats, aggrieved. “And fancy fucking manners. The fuck.”

He turns back to his pan, and Squalo’s lips twitch. “Dancing and manners,” he drawls. “I guess he didn’t realize that not saying ‘fuck’ every couple of words is as mannered as you get.”

The steak knife that comes flying at his face is almost expected, and Squalo just tilts his head so that it flies past him and embeds itself in the wall.

Shifting a little to look at it reveals the knife quivering in a section of the wall covered in the scars of a dozen previous knife throws, and what looks like the snapped-off blade of a boning knife.

“Doesn’t the old man ever yell at you for destroying parts of his precious manor?” Squalo asks idly, turning back to watch his boss.

Xanxus snorts. “He’s never been in here,” he says as he spears two steaks and drops them unceremoniously on a pair of plain white plates. “This is fucking Martelli’s private kitchen. She said the knives were better than the fucking cake forks.”

Squalo thinks about asking, and then Xanxus puts a knife through the steak in front of his nose, hard enough to scrape the plate below. Because he _can_ take a hint, Squalo doesn't say another word, just hauls himself upright. Instead of talking, he concentrates on making his hand work properly to grab the knife, while Xanxus drops into a stool on the other side of the counter and applies himself to his own food with gusto.


	9. delinquent au 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sawada tsunayoshi, enough is enough

“ _You’re_  the son of il Giovane Leone?” the man laughs in Tsuna’s face. “Man, I’d be doing your dad a favor, getting rid of you!”

Tsuna can feel his face heating up, but he doesn’t say anything, instead concentrating on the sloppy knot he can feel but not see.

 _Keep your temper_ , he tells himself. I _f you attack him, you’ll lose all the progress you’ve made._

“The Vongola must be so embarrassed by you,” the man says, and Tsuna bites his tongue and keeps working on the knot. He doesn’t know what the Vongola are, but he doesn’t want to ask. “Maybe that’s why he never admits you exist, he’s too ashamed that he had such a pathetic son!”

Tsuna keeps his eyes fixed on his mother, on the blood in her hair. He keeps his attention fixed on the almost-untied knot. He can still hear.

“Man, it'll practically be a public service, killing you off.”

The knot comes apart, and Tsuna looks up at the man holding a gun on him, talking about some “Vongola” and Tsuna’s father, who apparently isn’t dead.

Tsuna’s cheeks feel stiff from the tears that are drying on them, and he knows his eyes are red, but all he can feel right now is fury. This man–European, blonde, a scar through his eyebrow, a beard like Tsuna’s father’s and a suit that doesn’t seem to fit–this man is the reason that Tsuna’s mother is bleeding onto the carpet.

This man is going to pay.

Tsuna bares his teeth in an expression that would be more at home on Hibari Kyouya’s face, and launches himself for the man’s throat.

——–

Six hours later, after the police and the ambulance have come and gone, Tsuna can still taste blood in his mouth, keeps finding hints of skin between his teeth.

His mother still hasn’t woken up, and his father is impossible to get into contact with, and Tsuna thinks that he’s still angry. Not at the man, not anymore, because that’s over. Tsuna took care of it with his teeth and his fists and the entire contents of the kitchen knife block, just to be sure.

He’s angry at his father, who should have been here, should have kept this from happening.

(Tsuna tells the hospital psychiatrist this. She tells him that these feelings will pass in time, that he’ll learn not to blame dead people for what the living do.

Tsuna clenches his fists at that answer, and feels like he’s drowning in fury. His lungs are too tight, until he returns to school a month later and Hibari Kyouya drags him out of class and into a fight. In the midst of a relentless assault, Tsuna takes his first free breath in weeks.)


	10. delinquent au 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsunayoshi and takeshi, fascination

Sawada Tsunayoshi’s been strange lately. The teachers, who used to ignore him or say nasty things about him are treating him with kid gloves all the sudden, kind of like how they treat Hibari, but less scared. And Sawada himself is weird, all kind of intense and angry and weirdly fragile.

He was fading into obscurity and the bottom of the social ladder peacefully just a few weeks ago, and then he missed school for a while, and something must have happened. Because Sawada’s not fading at all anymore. Instead he looks at everyone like they’re strangers and smiles this odd little smile, while Hibari orbits him erratically and unnervingly.

Takeshi  _loves_  it. It’s upended everything he thought he knew, everything he’d seen before, and Sawada’s  _incredible_  all the sudden, focused down like it’s the bottom of the ninth, with two outs, two strikes and the bases loaded, like he’s the pitcher who needs to throw that perfect last pitch. 

He’s focused like that  _all the time_  and it’s almost scary, because Takeshi didn’t know anyone could maintain that kind of focus for very long, but Sawada does it.

This possibly explains what he does, at the end of classes one Saturday.

“Hey, can we be friends?” Takeshi asks, without introduction, and Sawada stops in the middle of picking up his backpack. Slowly, he turns, and looks at Takeshi, his expression absolutely flat.

“Why are you asking me that?” he asks, and slings his backpack over his shoulder.

Takeshi laughs, one hand rising to rub at the nape of his neck. Sawada’s really sharp now, definitely, and he’s not very nice at all. But that’s no reason to give up. In fact, it just makes Takeshi even more determined.

“You just seem really interesting,” he says, honest. “I thought being friends with you would be cool!”

Sawada regards him with weird eyes for a moment, and Takeshi wonders why no one’s ever mentioned how light they are–more orange than brown–before.

Finally, Sawada clicks his tongue and turns away.

“Do what you want,” he says, and doesn’t force Takeshi away when he follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> relationship based, as some people might be able to guess, on Kengo and Akira from Monochrome Factor.


	11. delinquent au 2.5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsunayoshi and hana, dangerous friends

Hana doesn’t know how or why she developed something that’s almost a friendship with Namimori’s resident psychopath, but it probably says bad things about her that she kind of enjoys the lessons in stealing cars.

Still, it’s interesting, seeing Tsunayoshi, who’s so antsy and terrifying in school, so calm and collected while he walks her through the process of hotwiring whatever car has taken his fancy this time. He tends to lounge, like some kind of cat, in the passenger seat, while she plays with wires and swears.

And then, when she’s finally gotten the fucking thing running, he sits there, without a fucking seatbelt, and teaches her how to drive.

(The fact that Tsunayoshi should not know how to drive himself, being only barely fourteen, is not lost on her. But he’s impressively good at it anyway, and a good teacher.)

It’s a combination of the fact that eventually Tsunayoshi is going to get arrested for murder and that he’s introducing her to half his shady contacts that make Hana realize she’s going to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

The things she does for her friends.  _Law_ , honestly!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tsuna's not actually a psychopath, Hana just uses extreme terminology. She's interesting like that.


	12. delinquent au 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsunayoshi and iemitsu, cereal

Tsuna rubs the bridge of his nose and sighs, glaring at his idiot of a father.

Iemitsu swallows, and then says, in a bright, cheery voice, “I get the feeling that Tsu-kun’s mad at his Papa for not being around all these years!”

 _Don’t punch him, don’t punch him, you can say whatever you want, just don’t punch him_.

“Why shouldn’t I be angry?” Tsuna says, leaning in the doorframe and crossing his arms. “You faked your death for three years, and now that you’ve decided to show up, you’ve eaten all my cereal.”

Iemitsu looks down at the bowl of cereal, and then back up at Tsuna and smiles a wide, insincere smile. “Papa will buy you new cereal!”

Tsuna bites down on the urge to light the room up. If Iemitsu doesn’t know about the fire, now’s not the time to let him know. And Kyouya will kill him for ruining the kitchen if he loses control.

So he grits his teeth, instead, and says, “ _Not_  the point. Why are you  _here_?”

A blink. “I can’t just want to see my darling son?”

Tsuna doesn’t even bother to dignify that with a response, instead just glaring harder.

Iemitsu laughs nervously, and says, “Papa wants to offer you a job with his company!”

“ _What. Company.”_

Iemitsu brightens. “It’s called the Vongola, it’s very prestigious, centered in Italy…” His voice trails off, and Tsuna doesn’t even care.

 _Should’ve punched him_ , Tsuna thinks, before the white-lightning fury crashes over him and lights a fire on his brow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy tense problems batman!


	13. delinquent au 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsunayoshi and guardians, an offer you can't refuse

**_Storm:_ **

> **Before:**
> 
> The people she’s buying this information from are supposed to be good, if unconventional, and that’s the only reason she doesn’t start snarling the instant the teenager sits down at her table. He’s brown-haired and armed and she can almost  _feel_  his Flame blistering against her skin.
> 
> “Sorry I’m late,” he says blithely, like she knows who he is, like they arranged this, like he’s not a walking, talking threat. “Tetsu was supposed to come, but his boss detained him. I believe this is what he had prepared for you.”
> 
> The boy pulls a thick file from the bag he’s been hiding under his coat, and passes it to her.
> 
> “I’ve made some small additions of my own,” he says. “I thought you might find it helpful.”
> 
> She nods, pays for her coffee, and leaves the cafe.
> 
> (When she reads the file, it will be one of the scribbled addenda that finally provides the key to her assignment. She’ll remember the boy for how dangerous he is, and the intelligence service for any assignments in the area.)
> 
> **After:**
> 
> Bianchi has a split second of her instincts screaming warning before she’s snatching something small and fast-moving out of the air in front of her face.
> 
> Looking at the object in the palm of her hand, she can’t help but stare. It’s a ring.
> 
> It’s the _Vongola Storm Ring_.
> 
> She looks up, dumbfounded, to see that dangerous boy, grown just a few years older and a few orders of magnitude more threatening. He’s smiling, conspiratorial, and she looks back at the ring in her hand.
> 
> Her fingers curl around it, and she smiles back with all the venom in her heart.
> 
>  

_**Sun** _

> **Before:**
> 
> Tsuna clicks his tongue, tucks his hands into his pockets and surveys the alleyway. There’s a tiny redheaded kid being backed into the wall by a couple of older boys, all of them wearing the Yumei uniform.
> 
> It’s offensive.
> 
> “Hey,” he snaps out, approaching, “quit it.”
> 
> One of the boys turns to throw a punch, and Tsuna sighs and lets go.
> 
> A minute or two later, he blinks back into knowing what he’s doing. There’s a little smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, and one of the toughs’ hands under his foot.
> 
> He grinds his heel down for a moment, just to drive home the point, and then moves off.
> 
> “Get,” He says, and the two boys are off the ground and running a split second later.
> 
> Turning and flexing his fingers, Tsuna finds that the kid’s still around.
> 
> “Next time,” he says, “kick them in the balls and run.”
> 
> **After:**
> 
> Tsunayoshi paces, the phone clamped to his ear. This conversation, if Reborn can even call it that, has been going on for almost half an hour, and Tsunayoshi has said approximately four words in the entire time.
> 
> Finally he huffs what might almost be a laugh and cuts off whoever he’s speaking to.
> 
> “I’m glad your boyfriend is keeping you entertained,” he says, and Reborn can hear the spluttering _that_ comment causes from ten feet, “But I need you to come to Sicily.”
> 
> There’s another minute of Tsunayoshi listening and whoever he’s called for the Sun Ring chattering on, but eventually the person on the other end of the line seems to capitulate.
> 
> Whatever they say makes Tsunayoshi smile, and it startles Reborn just how much that changes the sharp lines of his face, softening them more than he would ever have expected.
> 
> “Thank you, Shouichi,” Tsunayoshi says, with surprisingly genuine warmth.

_**Lightning** _

> **Before:**
> 
> “Keep away from Kyoko.”
> 
> Sawada stares, with those flat, unnervingly orange eyes for a moment, before he smiles. It makes him look like a fucking murderer.
> 
> “Fine.”
> 
> **After:**
> 
> Tsuna looks at the ring, remembers the crackling green lightning that danced around Ganauche’s hands, and grins. It makes the people watching him uncomfortable, he knows, but he doesn’t care. They’ll get used to it, or they’ll pretend to.
> 
> Instead, he picks up the ring, toying with it, and hits a number on his speed dial, stepping out of the room.
> 
> There’s a  _click_ as the line connects almost instantly, and Tsuna leans against the wall, looking at the ring in his hand.
> 
> “What do you want?” she asks him, without so much as a hello.
> 
> “Hey,” he says, and he knows this is just going to raise Timoteo’s blood pressure even more. “How would you like to become an utterly amoral criminal lawyer?”
> 
> “I already  _am_  an amoral criminal lawyer, Sawada,” she says, and Tsuna’s smile widens.
> 
> “Sure,” he replies, “but I meant a  _criminal_  lawyer.”
> 
> Beat.
> 
> “Sawada,” Kurokawa Hana says, “what the  _fuck_  have you gotten yourself into now?”
> 
>  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mostly an experiment with style, showing Tsuna gathering a few of his later guardians. Honestly, I couldn't tell you who he gets as a mist in this verse so don't ask


	14. delinquent au 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsunayoshi, itching fingers

Tsuna’s been itching for _weeks_ , way down in his bones. He’s pretty sure that most of the people he’s hanging out with feel the same. It’s not normal, and he’s not quite sure what to do with the feeling. Usually he’d have gotten into three or four fights by now, but no one except Xanxus or Reborn is ever willing to rumble with him.

Then someone kidnaps Kyouya.

There’s a ransom note, which is so funny Tsuna can’t read it for the tears for about fifteen minutes.

It’s possibly the most ridiculous thing Tsuna has seen, and given the amount of ridiculous shit he’s been putting up with now that he’s been relocated to Italy, that’s saying a lot.

“’…if you value your friend’s life.’” he reads aloud to Takeshi. “Do these people know who we _are_?”

Takeshi grins, and hefts his bat. “Could be fun to go anyway though. Scare them a little, piss off Kyouya, have some fun?”

Tsuna takes a drag on his cigarette and considers. On the one hand, if he and Takeshi show up, and interfere with whatever fun Kyouya’s having with these kidnappers, Kyouya will _definitely_ take it out on them.

On the other, though, if Takeshi is suggesting this, it means that Tsuna’s laughing murderer of a friend is _also_  getting bored, which could be either very good or very bad depending on whether or not Squalo is ready for attempted murder at all hours of the day.

Also, Tsuna is _so bored_  of this perfectly tasteful mansion with the perfectly tasteful suits and the art and the furniture and the fucking _table manners_.

He never thought he’d miss Momokyokai gaudiness, and yet, here he is.

“Oh, fine,” he says, kicking his chair back and standing up. “Let’s go. There’s a Bugatti in the garage I want to try hot-wiring.”

* * *

(When they find Kyouya, it’s not the kind of fight they were expecting–illusion and mad science and possession and a dozen more nasty tricks–but oh, Tsuna knows how to fight because there’s nothing left, and how to fight to keep his own mind.

Mukuro stares as Tsuna snarls and calls all the heat of his fury close and _throws_  the fucker out.

And then Tsuna grins. This asshole just tried to invade his brain, to take him over, to kill his people.

He pulls the brass knuckles out of his pocket and the knife from its sheath, and gets ready to fucking _go_.)


	15. deaged xanxus

When Squalo’s phone goes off at four in the morning, he opens his eyes and instantly promises himself he’s going to kill whoever’s on the other end of the line.

Picking up his phone, he accepts the call without even checking who it is.

“Voi, do you know what fucking time it is?” he snarls into the reciever.

An exhausted sigh answers him.

“Intimately,” says the low oil-slick voice that belongs to Sawada’s Mists. “Unfortunately, there’s a situation, and Mukuro-sama is handing the outsiders, which leaves _me_ to handle you.”

 _Damn_  but the Chrome kid has gotten to be so much more of an asshole over the years. Which isn’t necessarily a _bad_  thing, except that it’s making it hard to find _anyone_ in the family who isn’t a dick, besides Sawada obviously, and it makes Squalo tired.

“Fuck is it then?” he asks, resigning himself to having to get out of bed.

“The Estraneo have decided to resurface,” Chrome says, and there’s background noise like he’s walking somewhere, which is unnerving. Chrome likes to stay in one place when talking. “The Boss wanted it handled, but apparently they caught wind of us before we found them.”

Squalo clicks his tongue, because this is what happens when Sawada’s crew of destructive lunatics tries to do the Varia’s job. They get caught out. Which begs a question.

“Voi, why do I need to care.”

Chrome sighs. “Well. That’s easier to demonstrate.”

There’s the sound of a door opening and closing.

“You’re on speakerphone,” he says, but not to Squalo.

“Fuck is that supposed to mean to me, bitch?” someone snarls, and Squalo stops breathing.

He knows that voice, all furious arrogance and bleeding edges. If he closes his eyes he can _see_  Xanxus, all of fifteen, barely keeping his flame in his skin, barely keeping his fury from exploding out at the entire world.

“ _What_ –” he manages, sounding like he’s had all the air punched out of him.

There’s a click, and Chrome’s voice is back in his ear.

“As far as we can tell, he is, for all intents and purposes, twelve year old Xanxus. He doesn’t remember anything from past then, he’s in the same physical shape from what little medical testing we can do, the works. Come pick him up. You’re probably the only person he knows right now.”

Squalo is already dressed and halfway out the door, but he feels the need to argue anyway.

“Wouldn’t the damn brat-boss be better for that? Everyone likes that asshole.”

A pause.

“The Boss is with Mukuro-sama. He thought it was time everyone remembered why the Vongola shouldn’t be interfered with.”

Yeah, okay, Squalo will give Sawada that. It’s even a nice lie to cover the fact that Sawada’s a fucking bleeding heart over his people, and his boyfriend especially.


	16. sense8 cross 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna and xanxus, family defense

No one really bothers Sawada Tsunayoshi. It’s not because he isn’t a tempting target, because he _is_ , all dreamy eyes and ridiculously low grades and incredible clumsiness. He’s never paying attention to the people around him, and he trips over his own feet and he knows _everything_ , it sometimes seems like, which means he should be getting high grades, but he doesn’t, so there must be _something_  wrong with him, right?

So he should be a bully magnet.

He’s not though. The reason gets demonstrated over and over, because periodically people forget, or someone new moves to Namimori, or someone just plain has a lapse of judgement.

They always try to jump Sawada in public, for some reason, and it never stops feeling like Sawada arranged it, like he was planning for this to happen, because there’s _always_  an audience, and Hibari Kyouya is always nowhere to be seen.

The beating is always scientific, brutal, just on this side of too much and delivered with an utterly blank expression. Sawada always walks off after, stretching like it was a morning warmup, and his attackers are always, eventually, able to stagger to their feet.

(As he walks away, stretching muscles he knows are going to be sore in the morning, Tsuna smiles at the man no one else can see.

“Thanks for helping out,” he says, and the man just snorts, tucking his hands deeper into his pockets and slouching.

“Take care of it yourself next time, brat.”

Tsuna blinks innocently. “But you and Suzuki are better at it than me! And Suzuki’s always busy with her committee and I don’t want to interfere with her job.”

“Like I don’t have a job?” the man growls.

A roll of Tsuna’s eyes. “You work like six weeks out of the year. Squalo handles basically everything. You just sleep and drink.”

“Don’t get snippy with me, brat,” the man says, before he reaches out to ruffle Tsuna’s hair.)


	17. empath tsuna

“Ciaossu,” an unfamiliar voice says, and Tsuna’s eyes slam shut.

 _brickwallvaultdoorcastlewithadragonbarbedwireimpassablemountains–_ he starts to visualize, reaching for any and all of the barriers he’s learned work to block out other people’s minds. He wasn’t expecting someone new, and his shields are like gossamer, letting him track his mother, touch the surface of her mind and find comfort.

If he can’t get his haphazard shields back up–

Finally, one image sticks. An opalescent sphere of pure energy, stolen wholesale from an anime, unfolds in his mind’s eye. _Impenetrable_ , he tells it, _protection_. It shimmers, as if in response, and Tsuna opens his eyes.

A baby in a suit is looking at him, with a distinctly unchildlike expression. That would be shocking enough on its own, but Tsuna’s mouth drops open for an entirely different reason.

There’s no pressure on his hasty shield from this person. Just a sense of a _chasm_  instead of a human, a void that is deep and dark and still, but, just maybe, not truly dangerous.

—-

Reborn curses to himself as he takes in the heir to the Vongola, who had flinched from his words like they were a blow.

Iemitsu and Timoteo might not know what the child is, but Reborn does. Dammit, but this changes things. His briefing said that Tsunayoshi was solitary, prone to fits of temper, and possessed of a sense about people that could only be the Hyper Intuition in spades.

The briefing is entirely wrong. Reborn can tell, just from the way Tsunayoshi’s presence is muted and strange. Amateur shields, no doubt, and not very good ones.

God _fucking_  dammit, but this changes things. A natural empath, without training, in charge of the Vongola?

 _Disaster_  would be putting it mildly.


	18. varia snip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fran, trouble

“He’s my little brother,” Squalo says, trying not to grit his teeth. “Our mother signed him out of school for the day.”

The police officer looks at the two of them skeptically, but Squalo raises an eyebrow at him, and the man decides that he’s clearly not paid enough to dig into this.

“Fine,” he says. “Just try to keep him a little closer to home next time, all right? Not everyone is going to want to let it go. Nothing screws with your education like truancy charges.”

Squalo just smiles and nods and tries not to grind his teeth, as the police officer gets back into his car and drives off.

He only lasts until the car is out of sight.

“The fuck were you thinking, shitty frog? You couldn’t pretend to be older?”

Fran just blinks slowly at him, supremely unconcerned.

“You should be careful, Commander,” the brat says. “You could give yourself a heart attack, stressing over my education like that.”

Squalo restrains a scream with dedicated effort. He can’t kill the brat-illusionist, however much he might want to.

“The next time someone pulls you over for truancy,” he says, instead, barely restraining his temper, “I’m letting them take you to whatever station they’ve got around here, and grill you about your parents.”


	19. adulthood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna, "i'll shut down the city lights/i'll lie, cheat, i'll beg and bribe"

_Breathe_ , Tsuna tells himself. _You have to_ breathe _._

She’s just so _small_. He never expected that, even after being told so many times. She’s so small, and so fragile, and she’s not beautiful. Not yet. She’s still a little squashed looking, and more than a bit disgruntled with the whole process of being born.

Atsuko has the makings of a scowl that will tear down men.

Or perhaps only her father.

Tsuna leans close, pressing his cheek to the side of his daughter’s face, breathing carefully, already sure that there is nothing he would not do for her, for her happiness.

Should she wish it, when she is older, he will hand her the Vongola with pride.

(Should she ask, he will bring the Family down screaming.)


	20. delinquent au 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hana, monstrosity

The thing is, people treat Hana like she’s not even there, sometimes. Which, sure, gets annoying. They look at her, hair tied back, reading glasses on, court suit precise and pristine, and they think Tsuna’s made a mistake.

Still, it always makes Hana smile, that “we can take her” look on people’s faces when she sits in on meetings. She never gets it back home. Either people back in Namimori have a better understanding of what that _fuck off_  looks like, or Italian men are just _stupid_.

(Given what Bianchi’s had to put up with over the years, Hana would bet a small fortune on the latter.)

“Hana,” her Boss says, breaking through her contemplation of the idiocy she now lives with, “One more thing.”

She turns to look at him properly, already sighing with exasperation.

“As nice as the new Maserati is,” he says in a monotone, eyes laughing, “didn’t I ask you to stop walking out of people’s compounds with their very expensive cars after the incident with the Veneno?”

That elicits a reckless grin. People should not boast about their expensive cars and even more expensive security systems in front of her. It makes her fingers itch. Mafia men are _terrible_  at not pushing her buttons.

And at security.

(Paulo Albani raged at Tsuna for four days over the loss of his Veneno, and Tsuna just raised an eyebrow and lit another cigarette. Eventually he offered the Albani boss a tour of the garage, and commiserated with the man over the price of good cars, standing in front of Hana’s new, emerald green Lamborghini.

She took Tsuna out in it that night, and they drank wine and laughed themselves sick.)

“It’s not stolen, Sawada,’ she says. “It’s Kyoko and Haru’s wedding present.”

Tsuna raises an eyebrow.

“I didn’t know that either of them needed a cherry-red GranTurismo.”

Hana waves a hand dismissively. Why is Tsuna _bothering_  her with this? She has six cases to review and he also wants her to do something for her _actual_ job. One more sports car in the garage does not merit this kind of interrogation.

“I’ll have it repainted soon, but I gave Tonio and the rest of the crew a month off after the Venano had to be taken care of so quickly.”

Tsuna leans back in his chair. “Ah. Well then, go on, have fun, try not to bring back any cars covered in blood spatter this time.”

It’s obvious he’s joking–the Corvette is one of Tsuna’s favorites. She always tells him not to drive it around when he’s under investigation, but he likes the way it makes cops twitch.

(Hana sometimes thinks that all of them are just the products of their misspent youth.)

She bares her teeth at him.

“Just for you, Sawada,” she says, and leaves his office before he says anything more.

Her bat is waiting outside the door, and she picks it up, careful of the nails as she swings it over her shoulder and heads for her garage.

Tsuna didn’t make a mistake with her.

He made a _monster_.

She clenches her free hand into a fist, feeling the heavy silver of the ring on her hand. She smiles to herself, and then gets, as Kyouya puts it, _really pissed off._


	21. delinquent au 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kusakabe, what you make of things

“The thing is,” Tetsuya says, slurring the words as only the profoundly drunk can, “the _thing_ is, about Tsuna. He just wanted to be a good kid. Just wanted his mom to be happy.”

Reborn stares morosely at his wine. It’s depressing just how easily he can see Tsunayoshi wanting to be a good kid, his mother’s pride and joy.

Tetsuya takes another drink. “But the mafia had to fuck that _aaaall_  up.” Kyouya’s second stares at the wall for a moment, his mouth twisting into a bitter frown. “He was majoring in anthropology and psych, y’know? Kyouya thought it was a waste, but Tsuna wanted to be. I dunno. Better than the delinquent kid.”

It takes a moment for Reborn to realize that the ripples in his wine are because his hand is shaking.

Carefully, he puts the glass down.

“People wouldn’t stop comin’ after him’n’Kyo-san,” Tetsuya says, and the slurring is worse than ever, and Reborn wishes it made it harder for him to understand what Tetsuya, who has known Tsuna since childhood, is saying. “They wouldn’t stop comin’ ‘n Tsuna’s always liked fighting but. Nobody treated him any different there, not like in Namimori.”

And now Tsunayoshi will be treated differently everywhere, Reborn thinks. 

He finds himself wishing that the Cizeta-Puglisi feud hadn’t erupted quite so thoroughly, and taken Enrico Vongola with it.

It’s a stupid wish, because Tsunayoshi wears his ring and oncoming title better than most real Bosses Reborn knows, but. 

The Vongola have taken so much from Tsunayoshi. Reborn wishes they could give the boy his life back, at least.


	22. sealed flame health issues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna, healing new wounds

It’s the fifth time Tsuna’s been in this particular Tokyo hospital in the last three years.

It doesn’t get any more interesting with repetition, honestly. The nurses like him, as always, and that means extra blankets when he asks (hospitals are always too cold) and extra jello with his meals, but that’s a thin comfort against being back in the white rooms.

Being a medical oddity is, to put it succinctly, the _worst_.

Besides, he’s supposed to stay in bed. It doesn’t matter that he’s pretty sure that the random fainting spells are over.

(And they probably  _are_  over. Tsuna’s gotten to know when his screwed up body is going to throw new problems at him–he gets hot flashes and the world is even colder than usual and the whole world takes on a bizarre red-orange tint at the corners of his eyes. Sometimes his tinnitus gets so bad he can’t hear anything else.)

Fortunately, he’s not hooked up to a heart monitor or anything else that’s going to set off an alarm if he goes on a walk. He just has to be careful of the nurse’s station.

—-

Fifteen minutes later, he’s shivering even under the several layers he’s wearing. Still, at this point it feels like heading back to his room would be giving up.

Turning another corner, he almost walks right into an argument between two well-dressed people who instantly put his hackles up.

“–kidding me! Cutting my body up for that kid?” 

Tsuna bites his tongue, and ducks back around the corner. How _dare_  someone say that?

Creeping close to the corner again, he listens in.

“It’s not just me,” the woman continues, casual and cutting. “No one really cares if she lives or not.”

“Hey, Nagi could hear you,” the man cautions, and Tsuna wants to snarl at him, wants to say that being _overheard_  isn’t the worst part of what that woman’s saying.

“She’s in the ICU now,” comes the careless reply. “She can’t hear anything.”

 _Wrong_ , Tsuna thinks, shivering against the wall. _So wrong_.

(Tsuna has spent too much time in the ICU. He knows that the girl can hear every word, if she’s conscious. The walls are _thin._ )

“–Going back to work; you do as you like.”

There’s so much _nothing_  in that tone that Tsuna wants to scream. Instead he tucks his hands into his armpits, huddles against the wall, and waits for the hallway to clear.

No one should be alone after hearing that.

—

When Nagi opens her eyes, there’s a boy in what looks like half a dozen shapeless hoodies dozing by her bed.

She blinks, trying to adjust to the way having only one eye changes her field of vision. Still, she’s pretty sure she hasn’t started hallucinating, encounters with strange boys in her dreams aside.

Carefully, she moves one hand to touch her abdomen. It doesn’t hurt, but she _is_ in the hospital. It’s probably just the drugs.

It’s full under her hand, without the horrific concavity she remembers seeing after the truck hit.

She must make some sort of noise, at that, because the boy stirs, and then blinks awake.

“Oh, you’re waking up! You’re Nagi right?” he asks, smiling at her.

She doesn’t know him at all, but she still nods, gingerly.

“I’m Tsuna. I’m supposed to be under observation but I sneaked out and. Um. Well, your parents are kind of awful?”

He looks so worried, like she doesn’t know her mother and stepfather don’t care for her. She nods again, slightly. He looks sad at her admittance, but continues his story.

“So I thought. Well, it’s no good to wake up alone. And I kind of sneaked in here? Which I realize now was an awful idea, but.” He shrugs. “Not _everyone_  is as bad as those people.”

Nagi knows she’s staring–the boy is going bright red, even–but she can’t help it. No one’s ever done anything like this for her.

Finally she manages to blink and look away. “Thank you,” she tells the sheet over her.

There’s the sound of scribbling from the table by her bed, and one of the boy’s hands appears in her vision, emerging from an overlarge sleeve with a piece of paper.

She takes it, confused, and looks up at him.

“I’m probably leaving the hospital in the next few days,” he says. “But I thought… If you want to, you could message or email me, and we could keep in touch? The nurses’ll get you a computer if you ask real nice, once you’re out of intensive care.”

There’s a knock on the door, and a cheerful woman’s voice calls out. “Sawada-kun, I can’t keep ignoring you’re there forever. Doctor Ishikura wants to give you an exit physical.”

Sawada makes a disgusted face at the door, and Nagi can’t help her giggle. He stands up from his chair, slow as an old man, and smiles at her.

“Sorry, I don’t think I introduced myself, did I?” he asks. “I’m Sawada Tsunayoshi. Call me Tsuna!”

Nagi tightens her grip on the piece of paper in her hand.

“Thank you, Tsuna-kun,” she says.

He grins, like the wide joy of a summer sky, and leaves.

Not long after, she falls back asleep, and back into the meadow with the boy who saved her life. She doesn’t let go of the paper, even then.


	23. sense8 au 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna and xanxus, explainations

Tsuna’s jog slows to a walk as he approaches where his Guardians and the Varia are waiting.

Reborn already looks murderous, probably because he’s confused, and the Varia are all wound tight as watchsprings.

 _You should tell your Captains to stand down, because I’m feeling a little bit like I might be murdered in the next ten minutes_ , Tsuna tells Xanxus, coming to a halt outside of easy stabbing distance.

 _That depends, did the useless one finally get Superbi over here_?

Dino’s offense is palpable.

_Like I was going to let your Second die? I’m still hoping that one day the two of you will fuck and your sexual frustration will stop interfering with my sleep,_

“That’s it,” comes the low rumble from behind Tsuna. “He’s getting maimed.”

Tsuna can’t help grinning, even as the lazy shot of Wrath flame screams past his ear. From where he’s standing with the other spectators, Dino yelps and dodges as best he can.

 _Sorry, Jesus!_  he says. _Don’t kill me for being honest!_

Tsuna laughs, and Xanxus’ amused snort is all the proof he needs that his eldest brother is smiling.

Still, now they have to explain.

 _All on you_ , Xanxus says cheerily, like the  _humongous asshole_  he is. 

 _I’m blaming you for no one telling!_ Tsuna says, and then squares his shoulders and goes to meet his fate.

–

Reborn blinks slowly at his student, who’s approaching with the air of someone headed to the gallows.

As he should. Reborn has several burning questions, and no desire to be redirected about them.

“So I guess I’m supposed to explain?” Tsuna asks, sounding more nervous than Reborn has ever heard him.

“ ‘Lei pronto, marmocchio?’ “ Reborn quotes, and takes in the wince with a more clinical eye than he’s used to using on his students.

“It’s…complicated, okay? And you’re going to think I’m crazy. We can prove it, I promise. So just….bear with me?”

Reborn clicks the safety off of his pistol. Second only to idiots, he abhors _babbling_.

Tsuna winces. “Yeah, we thought you’d react like that. Um. Simplest way to put it? Xanxus, Dino, Bianchi and I are in each other’s heads. Have been since I can remember. There are eight of us, but you’ve only met the four of us officially.”

“Bianchi’s on her way,” Dino says from behind Reborn, and Reborn _knows_  that his last student doesn’t have Bianchi’s number. There’s no way for him to know what she’s doing.

Tsuna’s shoulders relax slightly at that. “Is she going to _help_  though?” he asks, a little wry. “Xanxus is just here to laugh at me.”

—

 _I heard that_ , Xanxus sends back to Tsunayoshi, before turning back to his Varia and yawning like an asshole.

“We’re done here,” he tells them, daring them to argue.

Levi opens his mouth.

“Running the Vongola would be boring anyway. Can’t kill anyone.”

Levi shuts his mouth.

“Ngh. Going to explain what all that was about, stupid Boss?”

Xanxus just arches an eyebrow at his second. Squalo will be able to figure it out, if he actually _thinks_  about it. It’s actually kind of incredible that he hasn’t called Xanxus on about it already.

 _How many drugs is Superbi on?_  he asks Dino, idly.

 _More than he thinks he is_ , Bianchi replies instead. _Romario slipped it to him in his food. Watch him, there wasn’t much time to calculate dosages_.

Xanxus nods to himself. _How’s the explanation going?_

The response is pure exasperation from three different sources.

 _Chiara took this better!_  Tsuna complains. _And it was just Dino there!_

_Someone else could take over?_

A sigh _. I don’t want to interrupt Spanner,_ Tsuna says. _He’s working. And Byakuran’s just a creep_.

 _Rude!_ comes the absent response _._

 _Speak of the devil_ , Bianchi says wryly. _I’d like to keep Suzuki out of Vongola politics until we’ve figured out what’s up with the Iemitsu story_.

A sense of wry gratitude from Suzuki comes in reply. It’s probably bad form, how hard they’re working on keeping the Shimon a secret, but there are good reasons too.

 _What if I showed up?_ Fran asks.

 _Well, someone might stab you,_  Dino says, lightly.

 _No skin off my nose_ , their illusionist says, easily.

 _Yeah, but it’s a lot off mine,_  Tsuna says, before sighing. _Come on over then. Let’s get this over with. At least the hospital’s probably still prepped_.

“You’re distracted, Boss,” Mammon says, and Xanxus shrugs.

“You know why,” he says.

Mammon makes a thoughtful noise, before they jump up on top of Belphegor’s head.

“Reborn will ask me for details,” the Arcobaleno says.

Xanxus can’t help but smile at the underlying question. “Make him pay for them,” he suggests.


	24. sense8 au 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cluster, activation

It starts with a headache.

Okay, calling it a headache is like calling a killing blizzard a few flurries, but that’s semantics. 

It starts with a headache, and it starts with the piano in his head. It becomes impossible to concentration on anything else. Quick tinkling notes falling past each other like a waterfall, the tune familiar but unplaceable. Xanxus has never had time for music.

—

Bianchi doesn’t know _why_  finding out that the woman is dead hurt so much, inside. It means that she’s the center of attention again. It means her mother is happy.

But she can’t help feeling like something got lost. Something precious.

She hides in her room for almost a week, nursing a migraine that turns all of the lights in the mansion into rainbow spears through her skull.

Through it all, Für Elise keeps her company, one of the last pieces that the woman taught Hayato.

—

He keeps _humming it_ , and he doesn’t know the song, but it won’t leave him alone, and sometimes it makes him so _weirdly_  angry, and sometimes he feels like someone’s died and he feels so guilty about it.

And sometimes there’s just a kind of uncomplicated happy he hasn’t felt since it became clear he didn’t have a chance of leaving the Cavallone name behind.

Dino runs gentle fingers over the piano keys. His sister used to have lessons, but he’s never learned how to play, and since Dad and Uncle Mario started arguing when they think he and Chiara can’t hear, there’s been no more lessons.

 _It’s easy,_  says a girl who isn’t Chiara.

Dino looks up, and there’s a girl with pink hair and green eyes and a determined expression, standing next to the piano.

He feels like it should startle him, that she’s there, but it feels like this is how it’s supposed to be.

 _I can show you how to play it, I think,_ she says. _The woman taught Hayato so it can’t be that hard_.

Dino blinks. “I’d like that,” he says, and sits down on the piano bench, with a ghost of a girl beside him.

She shows him how to place his fingers, and they stumble, more than a little, as they try to play the sparkling, slightly sad song that still hasn’t left them.

 _I’m Bianchi Falco_ , she tells him, as they finally get the first few notes right.

“Dino Cavallone,” he says, and she smiles, like the barest flicker of starlight, and vanishes.

—

The boy is back, and as annoying as ever. Xanxus does his best to ignore him, poring over the documents he filched from his father’s office.

 _The Bassi_? the boy says, skeptical. _Maman doesn’t think they’re smart enough to do things like this_.

“What are you _doing_  here?” Xanxus asks, muttering under his breath so no one asks him why he’s speaking to thin air. He’s already learned that no one can see the others, the pink haired girl or the blond boy, or this _annoying_  kid with a mop of hair like a dandelion tuft.

 _Lessons were boring. And I was_ trying _to find the baby, not you. Guess you whine the same,_ the boy says, sticking out his tongue.

Xanxus growls back. “ _What_  baby?”

There _can’t_  be more of these annoyances. No. He has enough scum in his life without more people he can’t keep out with a locked door.

The boy is suddenly serious though. _There’s more of us–I thought you’d see it a lot faster. Even_ Dino _noticed. They’re a lot younger than us though, so I don’t think they can visit us. But_ we _could visit_ them.

Xanxus looks back at the documents for a moment, and the boy huffs, annoyed, before vanishing.

 _He’s right, you know_ , the girl says. _Just because you don’t want to admit it…._

Xanxus snarls at the voice in his head, and stands up from his desk.

Time to go practice at the firing range. No one bothers him there, and he can be free of all of these people he never asked to know.

There’s a hammerblow of _satisfaction-got-you_  that flashes the brief image of a redheaded boy pinned to the ground across his eyes, and Xanxus grinds his teeth.

Maybe he’ll study his French instead, for when he has to deal with hunting down the one who keeps waking him up in the middle of the night with _color-shape-pretty-happy-hungry!_

That one is _dead to him_.


	25. sense8 au 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cluster, mock war

_Bianchi, sunglasses_?

_Got ‘em. Check your backpack._

Tsuna sighs, digs through the bag his sister packed for him, and finds the dark glasses in one of the side pockets. 

 _Thanks for the heads up_ , he tells Xanxus, ignoring how the Varia commander is brooding in the back of his head. _You couldn’t make it yourself?_

 _They’d realize something was up_ , is the reply. _Speaking of, Byakuran. What the fuck’s up with Iemitsu?_

Tsuna keeps an absent ‘ear’ on his cluster’s conversation, as he hands over the sunglasses to Ryohei, with a quick explanation.

He has faith in his Sun’s abilities.

The battle starts, and Tsuna splits his attention as best he can. Still, a comment from Suzuki drags his attention to the internal conversation.

_There’s rumors he killed off an entire family, for no clear reason._

Tsuna doesn’t really have any reason to doubt it, but still. His father, irresponsible and indolent though he may be, usually has a reason.

 _Are you sure it was him?_  He asks, briefly letting the Sun Ring Battle fade in his conscious. _I mean, there are illusionists in the mafia. How hard can it be to impersonate someone?_

_—-_

Tsuna’s thoughts are a whirl of fury at Xanxus.

 _You_ encouraged _this in him!_  he snarls, letting his anger push the electric fire of his Will higher. 

 _And I’ll deal with him,_  Xanxus replies, voice dark. _For now, how good are you at dodging?_

 _What_?!

Something screams in his head, and Tsuna practically yanks his body to the side.

 _Not bad_ , Xanxus says, with a hint of amusement. _Better than I thought_.

Tsuna’s fury doesn’t die, but it eases. Xanxus will deal with Levi A. Than. That means it’s handled. He has to grin, a little at his brother, standing on the rooftop, all drama and flash.

 _You’re not Reborn_ , he teases _. You shoot slower_.

“Brat,” Xanxus says, and he sounds _fond_ , under the veneer of fury, and Tsuna bites down a laugh.

Xanxus has no such compunctions, and it makes Tsuna roll his eyes, before he slips the half-ring off of his finger and tosses it.

 _What_ are _you planning?_  he asks, and just gets mingled laughter from Xanxus and, annoyingly enough, Byakuran.

—-

 _He looks like a tooth fairy_ , Fran says, with a kind of clinical fascination. Tsuna has to feign a coughing fit, while Xanxus, who’s watching through Tsuna’s body, rolls his eyes.

The instant Belphegor goes mad at the sight of his own blood, Fran chimes in with, _Oh, so he’s a bad dental hygiene fairy. That’s why he smiles so much. You should do a banishing dance to get rid of him, you know._

This time, Xanxus is the one laughing. The sound of Xanxus’ deeper laugh coming out of Tsuna’s mouth has Ryohei smacking Tsuna on the back, to ‘help with his extreme coughing fit!’

—-

 _Are you ever going to admit your crush?_ Dino asks, casual as asking about the weather, while Tsuna and Xanxus watch their Rain Guardians match sword against sword.

_Are you ever going to stop being useless without one of us or Romario?_

Tsuna bites his lip. _Children, please_ , he says. _But really, Xanxus, can we be done with your pretending? Squalo could have killed Yamamoto there. For the sixth time._

 _Tenth, actually_ , Bianchi says. _Squalo’s a lot more flexible than people give him credit for._  She pauses, and then says, _You could have fun with that, Xanxus_.

Tsuna can practically _hear_  Xanxus choking, all the way from where the Varia are watching the battle. He has to cover his smile with one hand to keep the rest of his companions from asking about it.

When he turns to look at Dino, the other Boss is biting one fist in what would look like a concerned gesture, if he wasn’t also red with the effort of not laughing.

—

 _Mukuro’s not a typical choice of yours_ , Xanxus says.

 _I didn’t choose him. Iemitsu did._  Tsuna replies, already thinking things through. _Bianchi, get whatever we can ready for her, in case she need it. The thing with her stomach–that didn’t look good. If she’s going to work for me, I need to take care of her._

 _You’re only interested in the girl?_ Suzuki asks. She’s watching, with Xanxus. Tsuna shrugs, because she can see it, from across the gym.

 _She’s the one who’s here_ , he tells her. _And I remember what it was like being possessed by Mukuro_.

Dino, who’s watching from Tsuna’s side, cuts in. _It didn’t look like it hurt her, though_.

Tsuna shrugs. _It hurt when he did it to me. I want her to be okay._

The sense of Xanxus’ internal smile is odd, when Tsuna can see him scowling.

 _You’ll make a good boss, Tsunayoshi_.

_—_

Tsuna blinks, for a second, at the robot he’d thought was just Mammon’s convenient ride around a world not designed for adult infants.

 _Is that your work?_ he asks Spanner, who’s been filling all of their dreams with intricate technical plans as he works.

Spanner grins. _Beautiful, isn’t it?_ the inventor says. _I could make them better, and a lot more capable, but Xanxus only gave me a couple weeks lead time, so no one got wind of it_.

Byakuran sighs, lightly. _A more capable version is invaluable in taking control of large areas. People don’t argue with giant robots._

They all feel it when Suzuki disrupts Byakuran. A split second of changing control, and the Gesso boss falls out of his chair.

 _Mean_! he whines.

Tsuna sighs, and returns to the original topic of conversation. _It’s nice enough_ , he says, to Spanner, _but Hibari’s going to rip it apart in about ten seconds._

_—–_

Tsuna steps out for the Sky battle, and the link he has with his family is humming like a plucked string. Xanxus is waiting, self-satisfied.

And then the Cervello declare that they’re going to poison both sets of Guardians.

“No,” Tsuna snaps, at the same time as Xanxus _snarls_.

The Cervello look at both of them.

“A one-on-one battle _will_  suffice,” Xanxus tells them.

When the two pink haired women look ready to protest, Tsuna makes a quieting gesture. “You can accept this, or we’ll both walk away.”

The Cervello blink at each other, and then nod. Tsuna breathes out a sigh, as subtle as he can.

Neither he nor Byakuran were sure that threat would work. It looks like the need for an heir really is as desperate as they thought.

Tsuna sighs, settles his gloves a little snugger on his hands, and looks at Xanxus.

“Lei pronto, marmocchio?” Xanxus asks, grinning.

A pistol cracks, somewhere behind them, and Tsuna grins, even as he feels it slam into his head.

_If I died now, I would really regret not seeing everyone’s faces–_

The fire ignites.

“I don’t know, Xanxus,” he says, and the smile on his face is too reckless by far. “How ready are you for your little brother to beat you?”

Xanxus laughs. “Prove it,” he invites, and Tsuna kicks off the ground.

 

Forty-five minutes later, one X-gun is under Tsuna’s heel, the other, still in Xanxus’ right hand, is being kept wide by Tsuna’s grip on his wrist.

Tsuna’s right hand rests lightly against his brother’s sternum, frost crackling into being around his fingers in quiet threat.

 _Yield?_  he asks, and he feels like he could still take on the world, even with how much his knees are shaking.

Xanxus sighs, and there’s a glint of laughter in his eyes as he looks at Tsuna.

 _Yield,_ he says. _But_ you _get to explain it to everyone_.

“Asshole,” Tsuna says, pouting, before drawing back and picking up the gun at his feet. Offering it to his brother, he raises an eyebrow.

 _Now are you going to explain what all this was about_?

Xanxus smirks, taking back the gun and holstering it. _You can’t figure it out_?

Tsuna snorts, before he starts looking for the Cervello, to claim his ring. _I have a lot of theories. But it’s hard to believe that you’re willing to put this much time and energy into a PR campaign._

A snort. _You’re forgetting that this particular PR campaign might just keep you from getting_ shot _in the next few weeks_.

 _Oh_.

Dino interrupts. _The Cervello have declared Tsuna the winner. You two should get over here, and stop having such old-school loyalty moments. I’ll help explain if you rescue us from confused and creepy pink twins in the next ten._

Tsuna sighs in relief at the promise of backup. _Done_! he says, and breaks into a jog.

Xanxus laughs, and follows more sedately.


	26. delinquent au 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna and takeshi, teachable moments

Takeshi stares at the body.

Or at least, at what’s left of the body. Most of the face is missing, scattered at random all over Takeshi, his bat, and the alley he’s standing in.

“Well, that’s a hell of a mess.”

Takeshi looks up from the ruin of what used to be a man’s face, and finds Tsuna, who’s regarding the body with almost professional dispassion, idly folding and unfolding one of his knives. He looks…normal, like this is any other day, when he and Takeshi trawl through the back alleys for people who think kids are easy targets. He looks like _Tsuna_.

Tsuna, who apparently spends enough time flirting with the edges of the yakuza scene that he’s worth sending muscle after. Who isn’t _surprised_  by having muscle sent after him.

“He’s dead,” Takeshi says blankly, and Tsuna looks up.

“Well, yeah,” he says, almost amused. “That tends to happen when you take a metal bat to people’s faces.”

Takeshi didn’t even think before he did it, just stepped in between Tsuna and the guy, and _swung_ , like he was trying to send a baseball out of the park.

He also doesn’t feel bad about it, which he probably should.

“I killed him.”

Tsuna rolls his eyes, exasperation beginning to overtake his features. “Yes, obviously. Are you going to get with the program sometime this decade, or should I start calling a lawyer instead of Kyouya?”

Takeshi blinks. _Don’t be boring,_ he remembers Tsuna saying, early on, when he wasn’t quite with the program, and he remembers how that felt.

“Kyouya,” he says, firming his resolve. “What else do we need to do?”

Tsuna smiles, slow and terrifying, and crouches down by the man, ignoring the blood and brain matter under his shoes, as he pulls a second knife from somewhere in his jeans.

“Kyouya’s people handle most of it, but it’s always best to take care of the obvious bits for yourself. Those being the fingers and the teeth…”


	27. 27X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna/xanxus, predatory

“Careful,” Xanxus manages to murmur, never looking away from Tsunayoshi. “You could burn a man alive like that.”

The pressure on his chest increases for a moment, as Tsunayoshi leans into his knee, and then eases as the brat shifts his position until he’s straddling Xanxus’ waist.

“You aren’t complaining,” Tsunayoshi says, once he’s steadied himself, leaning close. He braces himself with a hand beside Xanxus’ head, and it would be intimate, except for the vast, wrecked room they’re in. The flame curling around the hand inches from his ear would be a threat, except for the way that it’s an afterthought.

Xanxus can’t help a bark of laughter, and the faintest edge of a smile touches Tsunayoshi’s mouth for a moment, before he releases his Flame. It wisps away to nothing around his hands and on his brow, and the orange haze over his eyes fades.

It does nothing to gentle him. 

Tsunayoshi emerges from behind his Dying Will like a sky full of stars appearing from behind clouds. Xanxus watches, fascinated, as flat orange fades into piercing amber. It’s like being watched by a hawk who hasn’t quite decided whether to settle upon the glove, to savage the falconer, or to slip away in a whirl of feathers.

Xanxus meets those unblinking eyes for a long moment, waiting for Tsunayoshi to make his decision, letting his Flame warm him in case of an attack. 

Finally, Tsunayoshi closes his eyes for a moment, mutters something incomprehensible, and leans even closer, his lips brushing against Xanxus’ cheek.

“ _I_ could burn someone alive, Xanxus?” he says, and his voice is warm and heavy with his Will. The hand he’s not using to hold himself up is pressed to Xanxus’ chest, over his heart. Xanxus can feel it, still fever warm through layers of cloth.

“You,” he says, and Tsunayoshi huffs a laugh, hot breath fanning over Xanxus’ cheek.

“Flatterer,” he says, with all the fondness of old friends or new lovers, moving his head so that his lips just brush Xanxus’ as he speaks. 

Xanxus groans quietly, tilting his head, not sure how to ask for what he wants. Tsunayoshi obliges him anyway, bridging the scant fractions of an inch between them with a sharp, biting kiss.


	28. supernatural au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna and xanxus, aid rendered

Xanxus feels it immediately, a familiar intruder, but the presence is somehow diminished, damaged and colder.

Bored of examining the birds, bright-winged and new-come to his territory, Xanxus leaves off shifting his own feathers to match theirs, and instead lets go of physical form, returning to the air and root and earth and water he is born from. It takes less than a breath to pinpoint the energies of the other in his territory, and Xanxus retakes physical form _there_ , moving his attention without crossing the intervening space.

It’s Tsunayoshi, as expected, but the wildfire spirit is a ragged, flinching curl of smoke and ember-flicker by Xanxus’ new-formed toes, wounded to the core.

“Easy,” Xanxus says, kneeling. If Tsunayoshi startles now, tries to run, it’s all too likely that he’ll use up the last of his energy and simply vanish into the air, like Mammon did only months ago.

(The loss still aches, when Xanxus reaches deep into his earth and finds ore and crystal singing pure, without the salt-bitter tang of Mammon’s claim.)

Tsunayoshi settles though, at the sound of his voice, and Xanxus can’t help but feel relieved. Reaching out, Xanxus peels back his influence over the land, as much as he can, to make things easier. Tsunayoshi is wounded enough, has lost enough energy, that making things any more difficult than they absolutely must be could be fatal.

“Light it up,” Xanxus says roughly. “I could use a good grassfire, and you need all the energy you can get.”

That’s not _quite_  true–it’s a little early for a grassfire, really, but Tsunayoshi won’t be able to tell, and the things that survive and come back after an early fire will be all the stronger for it.

Even with Xanxus holding back his influence and protection, it takes far too long for Tsunayoshi to start the fire, when it used to be more difficult for him to _refrain_.

Once the grasses catch, though, he almost immediately begins to improve. His breathing eases, no longer desperate gasping, but a steady rhythm, and his form slowly gains substance and color, though he remains a child, in spite of Xanxus shunting even the trickle of power the fire gives him back down the long-dormant energy-bond.

It’s a terrible sign that these wounds run deep. Xanxus remembers when Tsunayoshi took his energy-bond from Timoteo. Tsunayoshi’d fought the old man into submission, and still been able to spend enough energy to take a form that had filled Timoteo’s vast meeting-hall with flame.

Tsunayoshi is old, and canny, and has energy-reserves the likes of which Xanxus has never seen. There are few with the power to rival him, and none of them, to Xanxus’ knowledge, have any quarrel of this severity with him.

“What happened?” Xanxus asks, and he hates asking stupid questions like this, but anything that can shred Tsunayoshi down to fragments like this is dangerous, and he needs all the information he can get.

Tsunayoshi just laughs, bitter as a hardwood crownfire, and closes his eyes.

“He lied,” he says, and his voice is rough and rasping. “He lied, of course, and I failed.”

Xanxus shakes his head, bites down on the impatience that always rises when Tsunayoshi decides to be cryptic.

“Who lied?” He asks. “What did you fail?”

Tsunayoshi’s head lolls on a neck that doesn’t look quite right–too long and flexible for any human– and he whispers, “He took her.”

“Took _who_?” Xanxus asks, trying to focus Tsunayoshi’s attention. It makes sense that he’s scattered, it’s been centuries since he was last appreciably wounded, let alone this injured.

“He took her, and I failed. My responsibility,”Tsunayoshi mutters, opening unfocused eyes.

It all snaps together, finally starting to make sense.

 _Uni_. Uni, the too-young spirit of the lightning-strike, learning her wings and her swiftness under Tsunayoshi’s watchful eye. Uni, whose mother entrusted her to Tsunayoshi on her deathbed. Uni, who is, as spirits reckon things, almost Xanxus’ youngest sister.

Xanxus snarls, already reaching for his energy-bonds, to see who will go to war with him.

“Who?” he asks, and he can feel the feathers at his neck rising up with his fury, sawgrass sharpening its edges and bark taking on the form of armor.

Tsunayoshi looks up at him, eyes still vague and distant, and gives him an impossible name.

“Byakuran,” he says, and Xanxus doesn’t understand.

“ _Byakuran_?” he repeats. “Sea-foam and wave-breaking? He doesn’t have the power.”

Tsunayoshi doesn’t bother to reply with words. Instead he uses the wordless communion of bygone millennia to _show_  Xanxus what Byakuran is really named.

_cold/pressure. salt water and fathomless, lightless deeps._

When Tsunayoshi lets him go, Xanxus gasps, reaching out to the heat and light and air of his domain, brushing against the grassfire and the thousands of light-quick lives that inhabit him. A spirit of the dark water, not the shallows after all.

Tsunayoshi smiles, a little wry, but there’s something wild and dangerous and hurting in his eyes, and it makes Xanxus uneasy. It doesn’t fit with the quiet humor Tsunayoshi has always shown him.

“I did mention,” he says, “that he lied.”

He did, and Xanxus can almost see it now, how Tsunayoshi became so injured. He would have greeted Byakuran courteously, clad in burning robes, with Uni a blue-white flicker of a girl beside him, and expected the bloodless posturing of powerful spirits meeting each other. He would have expected the shallow-sea tugging that Byakuran has been known for over the centuries.

The unexpected strike of such opposing energies would have been fatal to almost anyone else, and Tsunayoshi has likely only survived because of the correspondences that he keeps secret. Xanxus called it paranoia when he learned, centuries ago.

The fact that those small things are all that have kept Tsunayoshi alive makes Xanxus’ claws itch in his fingertips.


	29. ghost arcobaleno au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna and reborn, convincing

_You know who’s doing it_ , Reborn says, his voice as calm as ever. _You might as well go and deal with it._

“Shut up,” Tsuna whispers, hitching his shoulders higher and refusing to look at the well-dressed and faintly transluscent man walking beside him.

 _Do you_ want _to see your friends get beaten up? I thought you liked Sasagawa, and unless I miss my guess, he’s next_.

“Shut _up_ , Reborn!”

One corner of Reborn’s mouth twitches. He’s gotten his name out of the kid, at least. That’s something. Sawada Tsunayoshi doesn’t like to admit that he sees ghosts, for all that he clearly _does_ , and so he tends to just mutter _shut up_  to all and sundry, and refuse to use their names.

Reborn, of course, has refused to let this stop him.

 _You’re good enough to stop them, we both know it. So why don’t you_ do it _, hm?_

“Shut _up_ , Reborn!” Tsuna suddenly snarls, and Reborn blinks at the outburst, nonplussed. “Stop _telling_  me things like that! I’m just Dame-Tsuna, I can’t do _anything_. You don’t need to lie to me or whatever, I _know_  I’m not good enough, okay? Stop making fun of me!”

It’s a good thing the street is deserted, because Tsuna’s gotten more than a little bit of a reputation after outbursts like this, and Reborn’s going to have to make this worse before it gets better.

Tucking his hands into his pockets, Reborn sighs and looks down at the kid, who’s staring at the pavement, shoulders hunched up around his ears. The Vongola blood is so bright in him, and Reborn wonders what it’s like, knowing _so much_  all the time, being unable to filter it out.

 _I’m not making fun of you, Tsunayoshi_ , Reborn says, and he means it. _You’re good enough to beat them. It will be difficult, but you’re faster than they are, and you fight smarter._

Tsuna twitches, but doesn’t look up.

_Remember what I told you when you first spoke to me?_

There’s no reaction, and Reborn continues, quiet and intense. _I said that I was going to train you to be the best there was, because I wasn’t going to let you waste the kind of potential._

“What potential?” Tsuna mutters, and Reborn almost sighs in relief, because if Tsuna’s snapping back at him, even this little bit, that means he’s listening.

 _Have I ever lied to you?_  Reborn asks, instead of responding, and slowly, Tsuna shakes his head.

 _You_ can _do this,_  he repeats, and slowly, Tsuna’s shoulders come down.

“Fine,” he mutters. “This weekend should work, right?”

Reborn lets out a slow, relieved breath. _It should,_  he says _,_  as Tsuna starts walking again. _We’ll talk strategy tonight, but a few days to prepare is always a good idea._


	30. 1857

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyouya/Hayato, unconventional romances

They have a formula for this. It’s hard not to, at this point.

Hayato picks the hotel, books the rooms, charms the people at the front desk into not telling anyone about the two young men in the nice suits. Kyouya passes those hours scouting their targets, speaking to his wide-flung Foundation members and learning what he can.

They spend three days gathering information from their various sources, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Usually it’s a pointlessly large amount of information, but Hayato believes in being prepared, and after that time in Sardenia, Kyouya lets him.

Planning tends to be a bit thin on the ground when they work together, much to Tsuna’s despair. But the fact of the matter is that Kyouya’s Tsuna’s strongest Guardian for a reason, and Hayato’s really, really good at not dying.

Kyouya also does his part to keep that streak up.

This time, it’s simple. They’re here because sometimes people get fucking _stupid_  when they see Tsuna at the negotiating table. They see big eyes and a smile and an offer to negotiate, and they think that they can lie to his face.

They think that they can hire assassins to take out the Vongola Tenth and his family.

I-Pin is still in physical therapy recovering from the shrapnel wounds she took shielding Fuuta, and one of Lambo’s eyes will never work properly again.

 _Not a promise or an oath or a malediction or a curse._  Hayato thinks as he lays spider-silk fine wires and moves stored arms in the grey hours before dawn. _Inevitable_. Tsuna’s eyes were very cold when he ordered them to Rome, and Hayato is a coward but he hasn’t tried to contact the Tenth yet, not ready to hear that ruthlessness again.

When he’s laid as many explosives as he can, Hayato leaves the Scienza compound, tucked into the trunk of a car that will be left unattended for several hours once it reaches a perfectly ordinary neighborhood with some peculiarly built basements. Kyouya lets him out, and they have lunch in a back alley, while the police raid a street peddler selling knockoff designer purses. It seems to frighten the tourists a few tables over, but it’s business as usual for the two of them.

They’re finishing up their meal when Kyouya’s phone chirps. The message is from Tetsu–most of the local Scienza branch have returned to their compound. Hayato nods as Kyouya conveys that information, and taps a few keys on his own phone, sending what seems to be a perfectly innocent text message to a random number.

_22/2. As promised._

The next several days will be an exercise in evading policemen who know how to pick out unusually fine tailoring, and working as Kyouya’s wheelman as the Cloud hunts down everyone that escaped the explosion.

The smoke will have settled by dawn, and they can begin searching for all the rats who escaped the nest. For today though, they’re just tourists. Hayato pays the bill and shrugs back into his jacket, and Kyouya offers his hand without even looking up from the message he is writing to Tetsuya.

Hayato twines their fingers together, and they walk.

Tomorrow is plenty of time to be murderers again.


	31. genderfluid mukuro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mukuro, maidenly airs

“You know,” Tsunayoshi murmurs, “Your presence right now does not exactly inspire confidence.”  
  
Mukuro bares her teeth back at him and says, just as quietly, “And why would that be, Tsunayoshi-kun?”  
  
Tsuna just flicks a glance over her, and raises an eyebrow. The expression is so thoroughly _Reborn_ , Mukuro can’t help but think that the hitman and his student have spent too much time together.   
  
“You’re faking the earring, for one,” Tsunayoshi says, which is an astute observation. He’s getting better at seeing through illusions. Probably Kyou-chan’s influence. Naughty boy.  
  
Mukuro smiles her most demure smile, and tilts her head, letting the illusion rest against her neck. “Well, you did begin negotiations with these people with Chrome. Just because we decided to trade duties for the day doesn’t mean that we should get sloppy.”  
  
Tsunayoshi’s raised eyebrow only arches higher. “I see,” he says neutrally, before letting his expression smooth into perfect calm and turning to face forward. “Perhaps the question I should be asking then, is ‘What is Chrome up to, today?’”  
  
“An astute observation,” Mukuro says, falling in behind her boss as he steps into the meeting room. “Chrome is continuing a conversation that wasn’t going well.”  
  
“Should I know?”  
  
Mukuro considers the question as she examines the various mafia men seated around the negotiating table. The only ones looking at her with anything approaching appropriate caution are Cavallone and his subordinate, and they looks faintly panicked. She smiles a little at Cavallone, and he winces.  
  
“Not for a few weeks yet,” she says, and suppresses her amusement at the way she has been so thoroughly dismissed by so much of the room. “He simply felt he needed to make his point a little more thoroughly.”  
  
Tsunayoshi snorts, quietly, and takes his seat. Mukuro takes up her position as guard, kicking up one foot on the expensively panelled walls and deliberately revealing quite a bit of her thighs in the process. Cavallone only looks more panicked, but so many of the other bosses are practically salivating. She can almost see them slotting Tsunayoshi in as one of their own kind, which is going to end in all kinds of unpleasant surprises for them.  
  
In five or ten minutes she’ll stretch, show off some of her midriff and see how much further she can push these lecherous old men.  
  
Chrome is probably having fun too, having his very _pointed_  conversation with Fedele Fingere about trying to restart old Estraneo projects. It won’t wipe out that Family’s attempts to become the new Estraneo, but it will certainly force them to be quieter about it.  
  
And if worst comes to worst, convincing Tsunayoshi to authorize a search and destroy on all of the new Fingere projects should be fun too.


	32. Mukuro with DID

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mukuro and chrome, who are you?

The system isn’t quite sure what to make of Chrome. They first found her in their meeting space, but she has claim to a body that is not the system primary. Fifth points out, regularly, that such a fact does not mean she _isn’t_  of the system. Preta usually snaps back with something about how it was the very fact that Ken and Chikusa had bodies that let them know that those two _weren’t_  of the system.  
  
Chrome doesn’t seem to have an opinion either way, and the rest of the system is split. Still, they all agree that there’s no use letting a perfectly good body go to waste, when their primary is imprisoned.  
  
It’s harder to inhabit the secondary body, which leaves Chrome fronting a great deal of the time, occasionally trading off with Deva or Naraka when the recognized faces of the system are needed. Still, sometimes Preta or Asura will front, without the illusions that Chrome and Naraka are so fond of.It tends to be an alarming experience to the people around them.   
  
Sawada Tsunayoshi is a peculiarity in that. He never seems to be shocked when he finds one of the older alters fronting from behind the secondary body’s face, which is more than can be said for most people the system interacts with.  
  
Of course, Sawada Tsunayoshi tends to be alarmed when dealing with the system in any form, so perhaps it’s simply that the boy doesn’t _notice_.  
  
Chrome disagrees with most of the system about that. She points to the way their nominal boss treats her differently from Deva.  
  
Deva, when he can be bothered, agrees, and takes it a step further.  
  
 _You might have noticed,_  he says in his whispery voice, _that Tsunayoshi treats myself and Naraka diffierently._  
  
Fifth bolts upright from his sprawl under the willow tree. _Bullshit_ , he says, eyes wide.  
  
 _No, I believe Deva’s right_ , Naraka says from their perch in the tree. _I thought it was just the circumstances, but he’s different for the two of us. He likes Deva better._  
  
Deva laughs his dusty laugh and prods the surface of the lake. _You might try introducing yourself, Chrome, D._  
  
The lake ripples discontentedly back, the co-fronters not pleased at the interruption.  
  
Still, D introduces hirself, and it takes only a few months for Tsunayoshi to reliably be able to tell fronters and cofronters at a glance.  
  
 _I am impressed_ , Naraka says, of it. _I thought he would take it well, but not that he would be so talented at telling us all apart._  
  
Asura, leaning against Chrome’s hospital bed, says, quietly, _We all stand differently. It’s why he had so much trouble when D and I would cofront._  He shrugs. _The boy isn’t the smartest, but he sees a great deal more than you give him credit for._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If _anything_ about this offends, please let me know and I'll rework it or take it down.


	33. different weapons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hayato, do your research

The opponent Storm rests a hand on Hayato’s shoulder, and Hayato bites down the urge to cut the asshole’s fingers off. For a supposedly elite assassin, his opponent clearly hasn’t done his research.  
  
Hayato is a physics buff, a conspiracy theorist and a hitman. He knows the importance of research, and if this _idiot_ had _done_  his, he wouldn’t have tried this particular trick.  
  
The battle begins, and Hayato begins with dynamite, because it’s expected of him, and it’s a good testing tactic. His opponent dodges, and when Hayato looks up, he’s ringed with wicked-looking curved knives.  
  
A click of his tongue and a quick dodge backwards , and the knives impact right in front of him. Narrowing his eyes reveals the expected glint of slender wire, and Hayato laughs to himself before brushing a hand over his shoulder and vanishing into one of the classrooms. It’ll take him some time to set things up for himself, but this member of the Varia is arrogant. Fifteen minutes will be plenty of time.  
  
  
It ends in the library, with a web of razor wire and a flex of Hayato’s fingers. The Varia brat seems to think that he’s the only person in the mafia world to use wire like he does, but he’s clearly ignored that there are lunatics out there who use it as a _primary_  weapon.  
  
The Tenth doesn’t want unnecessary bloodshed, but the web closes and it closes _right_ because Hayato might not be a natural genius like his teacher or the baseball idiot or Bianchi, but he’s _goddamn_  thorough.  
  
The rings fit together perfectly, and Hayato shoves the circle of silver into a pocket before throwing himself out of a window.  
  
Overconfident moron or not, the blond is a member of the Varia. He’s not about to release the web while still in range of those knives.


	34. horrible fathers club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna and xanxus, conditional friendships

The thing is, it’s supposed to be a joke. Xanxus said something stupid when he was drunk, and Tsuna was just drunk enough to think it was _hilarious_ , and the next thing they knew, they were holding monthly meetups in a shady bar in the worst part of the city.  
  
They call it “The Terrible Parents Club” when they’re drunk, and they don’t mention it when they’re sober. They spend several hours getting systematically drunk together, bitching about their parents and, eventually, starting a bar fight. Tsuna thinks it’s a miracle they haven’t gotten kicked out yet.  
  
Mostly it’s just the two of them, but occasionally Mukuro or Chrome will show up, drink for a little while, drop some horrible and disturbing tidbit about their childhood, and then swan off as if nothing happened.  
  
On those days, Tsuna and Xanxus have a standing unspoken rule to get _even drunker than usual_  and to try to forget they heard it.  
  
Other members of the Family also stop by periodically, but Tsuna and Xanxus are both dangerously erratic when drunk, and even worse when they’re together, so most people leave them alone for the night.  
  
Squalo is constantly shouting about the expense of the alcohol, while Hayato is usually screaming right back about the tendency both bosses have of vanishing without a word to anyone.  
  
Takeshi laughs in a corner and carefully doesn’t mention that relations between the main family and the Varia have never been better.


	35. flames as the powers of old gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna, uniqueness is lonely

You’re not supposed to be born with the ability to Invoke. It’s supposed to take years of rigorous training in the priesthood, supposed to require the right accouterments and incense to find the correct mindset, supposed to need relics to Invoke _from_.  
  
You can be born with the _talent_ , but every Invoker Tsuna has ever met, no matter their order, has said it took years before they could even cast sparks, let alone call a true Flame. And they _always_  need relics to call the flameform Beasts.  
  
It’s not a comfortable feeling, to realize he’s unusual again. It’s bad enough that his family’s among the only Skypath devotees around. If it got out that Tsuna can somehow Invoke without being trained, or even really trying, the results could be disastrous.  
  
But…  
  
Tsuna takes a deep breath and calls the Flame again, warm and orange. It gusts through him like the wind on the mountain peaks, clean and fierce and free, and it warms him straight down past his bones. With the Flame burning on his hands and brow, it doesn’t matter that in six weeks or less, he and his mother will have to move on. It doesn’t matter that he still trips over his tongue at worship, that he still expects orange and gold instead of violet and black.  
  
 _It’s not safe for us_ , his mother said when they left, and Tsuna believes her. He just. Misses it, sometimes.  
  
Pushing the the melancholy out of his mind, Tsuna reaches out, through the Flame. He only figured this out recently, but it’s good, it’s really good when it works.  
  
He reaches out, and like catching another person’s hand, something reaches back, grasps his Flame, and _pulls_ , like it’s sending him into a spin for one of the festival dances.  
  
“Gao!” Tsuna hears, and opens his eyes, grinning, as a Flame-maned cub leaps at his chest.  
  
With Natsu to lean on, no matter how hard things get, Tsuna thinks he can handle it.


	36. mare ring!tsuna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna, organization and contemplation

The Decimo is doing well, Tsuna notices, sprawling out on warm grass. It’s certainly odd, to feel the half-echo that other self sends back, but it’s better than the constant influx of information the rest of the others can’t avoid sending. It’s because of the way that the two pieces of the Trinisette interact, probably. The Vongola Ring shields the Decimo from sending too much to Tsuna.

The rest of them don’t have such barriers, and it gets annoying. Most of them are completely ordinary, which cuts down on the noise at least. The exceptional ones are rarer, unsurprisingly, but at least he doesn’t have quintillions of others screaming their lifedeathpapercuttriumphlossjoy at him all at the same volume.  
  
Being No-Good has its benefits.  
  
He’d wonder if that was why the women with the pink hair gave him the ring, but they provably don’t care what he does with the ring.  
  
(The megalomaniac(s) is(are) screaming, but Tsuna’s made his decision, and the ice only freezes tighter. The power wasn’t worth the death toll.)  
  
The Tsuna with the watch is staring and Tsuna sighs, because he’s getting annoyed at how often that version of him is dying painfully. A quick knock to the inside of his head, and the right numbers go onto the keypad.  
  
A sigh, and Tsuna opens his eyes, squinting against the sun. There’s a couple thousand more of the others to check on and organize. It’s going to take _hours._  It’s fortunate that he can lean on them all for his schooling, because he’s found himself sleeping through class more and more in order to spend time keeping everything neat.  
  
Pressing the orange stone and the silver wings to his lips, Tsuna considers the worlds, and the others, and wonders what he should do with the six rings hiding in his closet.


	37. hayato and kyouya working together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hayato and kyouya, no mercy

Hayato remembers Tsuna’s face when he gave the orders, dead white, his eyes burning like coals in a far-too-still face, blood smeared across his cheek and forehead and the stink of hot metal filling the air around him.  
  
The room had been a shredded mess, and most of the bodies looked like they’d been torn apart. If there was blood on Tsuna’s gauntlets, the red of the Vongola Gear hid it from everyone’s eyes.  
  
 _Destroy their stronghold,_  Tsuna had said, his voice like the heart of an inferno, _and bring my daughter back_.  
  
There was never any question of who Hayato would take with him. He and Hibari haven’t worked together much lately, but when it comes to murder, mayhem and widespread destruction, he and Hibari are the best the Vongola has to offer.  
  
It’s cold, and the moon has just set, leaving the two of them in the pitch-darkness of early morning outside the Rapitore mansion. There’s nowhere else for this failing, suicidal family to have taken the Vongola heir, and it’s going to get them all killed. Their mission is halfway complete, but the most important part is yet to come.  
  
Hayato breathes out, long and slow, and carefully opens a single, scarlet box. “Go,” he says to Hibari, and the Cloud slips away like a shadow, only a slightly darker darkness in the night. He’s Atsuko’s favorite, and while he has a lock on her tracker, Hayato thinks it’s more than likely that he’ll simply walk in a perfectly straight line towards her. He’s never needed directions to find her when she’s in trouble.  
  
God have mercy on the people who get in his way. Hayato’s not particularly fussed.  
  
He counts seconds and minutes, forcing himself to keep calm by focusing on the perfect calm of numbers, until violet fire blooms like a poisonous flower at the heart of the complex, and then he double clicks on his earpiece, an acknowledgement that Hibari has found Atsuko and is beginning his extraction.  
  
It’s barely three minutes later when Hibari’s voice, clipped and angry, comes over the headset.  
  
“We’re clear,” he says, and Hayato calls his Flame, and hits the detonator the box was carrying.  
  
The Rapitore base collapses in a roar of flame, and Hayato surveys it for a moment, making sure that no small corner has been left undetonated. The whole mansion is burning, and Hayato can smell the smoke, feel the heat. He picks up the few pieces of equipment that went unused, and tucks them away into his pockets.  
  
The first lesson has been administered, and Hayato has no doubt that Reborn is currently compiling a list of people to teach a very painful, terminal lesson to. For now, this will  have to be enough. Atsuko has been missing for almost a week. It’s time she saw her father again.


	38. khr/hellsing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna, burn

“Bullets aren’t going to to you any good,” Integra tells the man, though she’s rather impressed by both his firing speed and his accuracy. He’s managed headshots with impressive consistency, but it doesn’t do much against a pack of ghouls and vampires.  
  
“Got a better idea?” he grunts as he ejects a magazine and takes a new one his partner is holding out, not even looking for it.  
  
“Blessed silver usually works,” she says, looking over the two of them.  
  
They’ve managed an impressive setup, for not being prepared for vampires. Two cars crashed into each other in front of a sturdy brick wall, forming a small, triangular stronghold, and judging by the shell casings, they’ve been at it it for a while.  
  
“Unless Hayato managed to overcome his allergy to churches long enough to get his rings blessed, we’re a little short on that, I’m afraid. Any other suggestions?”  
  
The man who asks that question speaks English with the faintest hint of an Italian accent, and is wearing a suit that Integra would bet costs the same as the better part of a Hellsing munitions shipment. She’d be suspicious as to exactly where he and his companion learned to shoot with the sort of accuracy they’re displaying, but she has somewhat more important things on her mind.  
  
“Beyond complete destruction of the body, there’s not much else that’s going to stop a ghoul,” she says, and the reaction to _that_  is a fascinating conversation of glances and faint tilts of the head. Hayato, the man who was shooting finally shrugs, and his companion turns to Integra with a faint smile.  
  
“How well does fire work on these ghouls?” he asks, as he climbs up to crouch on the roof of one of the cars.  
  
Integra blinks. “Provided they’re completely turned to ash…I would imagine rather well.”  
  
Stripping off his suit jacket, the man’s smile deepens a little.  
  
“Well, Reborn is going to kill me, but at least I’ll see the kids one last time,” he jokes, passing the jacket to Hayato, who smiles a little back. “Keep her out of my line of fire?”  
  
“Will do.” Suddenly serious, Hayato turns to Integra.  
  
“Ma’am, you should probably come in here, for cover. The Tenth’s about to royally fuck up this street, and I get the feeling we’d all regret it if he killed you.”  
  
The mysterious ‘Tenth’ laughs a little from his position on the car roof, and starts to roll up his sleeves, as Hayato gives Integra a hand stepping over the boot of one and into the small space behind them.  
  
“Ready,” Hayato says, when they’re crouched in the small triangular space in between the cars.  
  
“Good,” the Tenth says, before closing his eyes. He takes a single sharp breath, and flame blooms on his brow.  
  
The man steps down from the car with supernatural calm, and takes up a stance in front of it, crossing his arms at the wrist. Red gauntlets now cover his hands, and Integra has a moment to wonder exactly where those came from, before he says, quietly, “Operation XX.”  
  
The world lights on fire.


	39. alternate career paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hayato, wariness

Hayato doesn’t trust mafia men, and he hates it when Bianchi asks him to perform for the Families, because inevitably someone tries to make him a kept musician, and frankly, his assistant’s getting suspicious of how much piano wire he goes through in a year. Besides which, it can be difficult to hide the body parts and clean up the blood before she barges into his corner of backstage.  
  
But it’s _Bianchi_ , and they’re trying to be siblings properly, after years of estrangement, and she seems to think this new boss of hers is worth something. And they’re paying well, which will cover some personal travel expenses of Hayato’s, and keep him in cigarettes and frozen dinners for a few months at least.  
  
And this particular Family–Hayato didn’t bother to find out who it was, just cut Bianchi off with a muttered “yeah, yeah I’ll be there” over the phone line–has been unusually polite. A freakishly polite and cheerful guy in blue was shadowing him for the last week, but it seemed like his job was more to keep _other_  freaks away.  
  
It doesn’t matter though, because Hayato just has to get through tonight’s performance, and he’s free to spend six months in New York pretending as hard as he can that he’s _not_  Hayato Gokudera. He cracks his knuckles, the sound sharp in his dressing room. He’s onstage in ten minutes, and the last of his nerves are settling as he checks his rings are all sitting properly on his fingers. The guy in blue slipped out five minutes ago with a smile and a cheery, “Break a leg!” Hayato wanted to punch him.  
  
Shaking his head to rid himself of the temptation, Hayato rolls his shoulders back, and waits for his call.  
  
  
After the performance, Bianchi, wearing a violet domino mask to keep him from passing out at the sight of her, takes him aside to introduce him to his newest employer. Hayato would really like to just quietly get drunk in a corner and vanish as soon as socially acceptable, but he may in fact be as self-sabotaging as his assistant says he is.  
  
“Hayato, this is my boss, Tsunayoshi Sawada.”  
  
Hayato nods to the slim man in an expensive suit, and doesn’t offer his hand. The man just smiles and turns to the man at his right shoulder.  
  
“Was he this grumpy when you were keeping an eye on him, Takeshi?”  
  
The guy who was stalking Gokudera, now standing guard over someone _rather more important,_ laughs a little.   
  
“Pretty much, yeah.”  
  
Bianchi’s boss just smiles, and turns back to Hayato. “Would you consider acting as one of our musicians?” he asks, and Hayato was expecting this question, and he’s moving to leave this little conversation almost immediately, except Bianchi’s got a grip like steel on his upper arm, and her boss is holding up a hand to halt him.  
  
Hayato’s not sure quite why he stops, but he does.  
  
“I understand that you’ve had offers like this before, but hear me out. You’ll have full right to refuse any engagement you don’t want to take, and we’ll keep the other vultures away. The only thing you have to do is say that you’re one of us if asked, and occasionally let someone check up on you.” He smiles. “Bianchi worries, you see.”  
  
That’s a…pretty sweet deal. It doesn’t make sense, not coming from one of the Families.  
  
“What do you get out of it?” Hayato asks, wary.  
  
The man shrugs. “I keep one of the Family’s assassins happy, we get a reputation boost from managing to lure in one of the best pianists of the decade, and I get to spit in Rossi’s eye about my recruiting tactics. Pick whichever one suits you.”  
  
Hayato hesitates a moment longer, then nods. “Fine. Because it means spitting in Rossi’s eye.”  
  
The man smiles, charming as could be, and says, “Welcome to the Vongola, Hayato Gokudera. Enjoy your reception,” and then just fucking _swans off_.  
  
Bianchi’s giggling, and when he turns uncomprehending eyes on her, she smiles at him and says, “Didn’t you pay attention to my phone call? That was the Vongola Decimo.”  
  
Hayato narrowly restrains the urge to hit her. She’d make him hurt worse for it, anyway.


	40. sao/khr 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reborn, gamechanger

Iemitsu’s son is far too thin, and tires too easily. Reborn doesn’t know why, and it irritates him. Just looking at the boy says that Iemitsu missed something _big_  when he told Reborn about his son.  
  
Sawada Tsunayoshi is emaciated, as though he has just woken from a long coma, and takes his classes online as best he can for the most part. Nominally, he attends a specialized school but he’s only present off and on, as his condition permits travel. He has a number of odd tics, including a tendency to swipe a hand down in front of himself, before blinking and shaking his head. He’s constantly reaching for something at his waist, only to sigh at himself when he finds nothing there, and his pain tolerance is unusually low.  
  
Still, the boy is also almost supernaturally aware of being watched, and has noticed Reborn more times than the hitman likes to count.  
  
Clearly, Reborn’s original plan of attack isn’t going to work, given that a certain blond _moron_  doesn’t know anything about what happens to his son. Reborn will have to talk to Sawada Nana, and he’s not looking forward to it.  
  
  
It’s not as bad as Reborn expected, given his impressions of the Sawada family. Nana is levelheaded and steady in a way that her husband never has been, and doesn’t even bat an eyelash at Reborn’s appearance, or him asking questions about her son. Instead, she makes him coffee and invites him to sit at the kitchen table as she makes herself tea.  
  
And then she pulls out a folder of newspaper articles, and explains.  
  
When she’s done, she leaves Reborn with a pot of coffee, the articles, and a great deal to think about. A game that trapped ten thousand people for two years in a world where they fought for the right to live and to return home. Sawada Tsunayoshi, one-time leader of the “Silver Flags” clearer guild and sole survivor of its destruction, solo clearer for the next eight months, until Sword Art Online is cleared.  
  
From the little information Nana has from her son’s game files, Tsunayoshi was a dagger and hand-to-hand specialist, and from some of the post-SAO articles, survivors of the game report retaining much of their skill.  
  
Reborn tilts his head back and considers. It will certainly change how he trains the boy, but it’s not an insurmountable difficulty. Clearly Tsunayoshi is accustomed to command, though he may be skittish, given the fate of his guild. Still, the boy is a Sky, and a strong one. It shouldn’t be difficult to find him Guardians he can be confident in.  
  
Given time and training, Reborn thinks he could pit Tsunayoshi’s hard-won skills against all comers and have his student come out ahead.  
  
  
  
(He gets his chance a little over a year later, and the Varia might scoff at fantasy styling of Tsuna’s clothes for the Sky Scramble, but when a single, testing _Slant_  from Tsuna nearly lays Xanxus’ chest open, they quickly learn to take the CEDEF’s candidate for Decimo seriously.)


	41. sao/khr 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna, survivor's guilt

Mukuro is stealing bodies and stealing skills and Tsuna would snap about how this isn’t _fair_ , but he remembers the Geocrawler, the Sword Walker, the Skull Reaper. _Fair_  hasn’t been a part of his life for years. Why should it start now?  
  
Tsuna bites back a cry of pain as Gokudera’s dynamite explodes too close to his face, and takes his feet again. There’s blood everywhere, and Tsuna can’t read blood the way he could read the lines of red polygons SAO left.   
  
 _Focus_ , he tells himself. Focus on Mukuro, who is controlling his people. Kayaba might not have put mind-controlling bosses into his game, but they showed up in others, before the Nerve Gear. Defeat the boss, the mind control ends. Simplest solution, least injury.  
  
 _Executing_  that solution though–  
  
Something begins to glow, blindingly bright, and Tsuna’s train of thought derails as he throws an arm in front of his face. He checks for a _Blinded_  status out of habit, before blinking and shaking his head. Not in the game.  
  
Reborn says something–items made for him? Tsuna wonders if it’s anything like a last attack bonus, idly, before one of his enemies slashes Leon in two.  
  
There are two items falling out of the air, and Tsuna almost recognizes one, impossibly.  
  
He snatches them, and it _is_ , a dagger of black glass, hilt wrapped in orange leather. The other item is a black glove, with the silhouette of two crossed flags embroidered in silver on the back. The emblem of the Silver Flags.  
  
Tsuna lets out a shaky breath, and pulls the glove on.  
  
A single bullet falls out, and he tosses it to Reborn almost without thinking. Trade items to party members with the appropriate specialties, easy. The glove fits like his old ones did, and the dagger is as comfortable as ever in his hand.  
  
Still. A Martial Arts and Dagger specialist against mid-range and close-range combatants with more stamina? It doesn’t make _sense_. There’s no more bullets for Reborn to activate his Dying Will, and Tsuna’s not seeing any way to get to Mukuro without doing too much damage to his puppets.  
  
There’s a gunshot, and an explosion, and everything _hurts_. But he can see the Silver Flags again, even if they’re all wearing the red lines Titan’s Hand left them with.  
  
“You’re dead,” he whispers, and Riina shrugs, dark ponytail shifting over his shoulders.  
  
 _We’re dead_ , he agrees. _So what?  
  
Honestly, Boss_, Sen chimes in, _stop dwelling on it. We all know Kayaba was a sick fuck, remember? We agreed the deaths were his fault._  
  
Well, yeah, but–

Vice snorts, and Sen shakes her head. Both of their swords are glowing blue, on the verge of vanishing, but they’re both smiling a little too.  
  
 _Come on, idiot boss,_ Taii says as her healing crystal shatters, and she turns to take on an invisible enemy. _Are you going to_ let _him kill you?  
  
Yeah,_ Sen agrees, as her sword bursts and red polygons bleed across her chest from an invisible wound. _Is that what we fought for_?  
  
Riina takes a blow to the throat, and breaks into a thousand scarlet pieces. Tsuna winces, and takes a breath _.  
_  
“No,” he says quietly, closing his fingers around Night Flight’s hilt. “No, it’s not.”  
  
 _Good_ , says Vice, and one by one, the Silver Flags die.  
  
Tsuna raises hand, catches the trident on Night Flight’s glossy blade, and orders himself to _win_.


	42. sao/khr 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna and takeshi, better

“You had to keep getting better, right?” Yamamoto asks, suddenly serious. “In the game I mean.

Tsuna tilts his head and frowns. This is kind of a strange line of questioning, but at least it’s not the same ones as he usually gets.

“Not _better_ , I don’t think,” he says, after a moment of consideration. “I mean, we got new skills as we gained levels, but you couldn’t _stop_  that from happening. I think what happened is we all had to get _braver_.”

Yamamoto blinks, and Tsuna laughs a little at himself.

“It sounds stupid, I know. But SAO was _scary_ , and all the clearers had to face that anyway. As we climbed the levels, we had to be braver. We had to stand a little stronger, every time we faced the floor bosses. It still wasn’t enough, if Kirito hadn’t–” He cuts himself off. The details of the end of SAO aren’t something he can share with the people who weren’t there. It’s private, somehow.

Yamamoto rocks back on his heels, looking up at the sky. “Did you face all of the floor bosses?” he asks, and his tone is light again, but Tsuna doesn’t trust it.

Still, he shrugs and answers. “No. I couldn’t make it to some, like the Gleam Eyes fight. And I…wasn’t in any shape to be on the front for a couple months in the middle of the second year.”

Tsuna clenches his fists, can almost feel the alchemically treated leather creaking over his fists, can almost _see_  Rosalia’s smirking face.

He forces out a breath. SAO is over. Kirito imprisoned her and her guild. His dead are peaceful.

“It happened sometimes. Clearing was hard. All of us had to take breaks from it sometimes.”

That gets him a thoughtful nod, and a smile.

“Thanks a lot, Sawada,” Yamamoto says, and dashes off.


	43. fascination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> squalo, edge of the knife

The first time Squalo sees the youngest Vongola son, he’s not impressed. School uniforms are boring and annoying, sure, but they’re not that hard to put on. The kid didn’t even try–he looks worse than Cavallone, Cavallone is incapable of putting on clothes without at least three near-death experiences.  
  
The second time Squalo sees the youngest Vongola–Xanxus, that’s his name–the brat’s finally figured out what the fuck to do with a tie, but his jacket’s still flung over his shoulders like the arms are going to eat him if he puts it on properly. Squalo snorts, and moves on.  
  
They pass each other on school grounds every so often after that, and Squalo finds some small amusement in noticing how the kid’s bucking the dress code that day. Sometimes its his shoes–knee high boots with excellent traction that Squalo would bet a great deal of money are steel toed. Sometimes his tie is missing, sometimes it’s loosened to the point it’s barely around his neck. It’s always something.  
  
Xanxus finally makes an impression when Squalo turns a corner into a quiet corner of the school campus and finds him throwing other students around like toys, Flame glinting white-hot around his fingers.  
  
There’s nothing Squalo likes more than a fight, and he dives in without a thought.  
  
The Flame in Xanxus’ hands burns brighter, and sears against Squalo’s skin, but Squalo’s got a few tricks of his own, and a knife strapped to his belt. It’d almost be an even fight, given Squalo’s on the side with the advantage of numbers, except Squalo keeps getting distracted by the feral, hungry joy in Xanxus’ eyes.  
  
He takes a punch to the face for his distraction, but he manages a nasty gash across Xanxus’ ribs and abdomen in return. They both end up in detention, and one of Xanxus’ brothers springs them both for a visit to one of the Vongola doctors.  
  
After that, Squalo’s hooked. He takes his share of punches and Flame-burns, but it’s worth it to be close fury that burns that pure and that bright.


	44. thinly disguised flame meta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reborn, kingship

Reborn’s watched a lot of bosses over the years, some Sky, some not, but it’s always been Skies who are the best at it. Even with the Earth flame to compare it to, Reborn still thinks that, Enma, when compared to a strong Sky, has nothing to stand on.  
  
Earth flames are _gravity_ , they draw in other flames of their kind– _growth_ , _compression, fermentation, crystallization,_ the like–but gravity never asks what you want from it. It _is_ , and it never, never lets go. And it has its attractions, Reborn will admit. Kyouya keeps his people in much the same way.  
  
Watching the Shimon says a great deal about gravity, and not all of it is good. Certainly, Enma is steady, never flaring or dying, but that’s both blessing and curse. The boy’s become too used to holding his people together, but he never asked for them, and he never asked if they wanted to be there.  
  
It’s that gap that Daemon Spade slipped through.  
  
Skies are different. Not _gravity_ , but _harmony_ , and Reborn sees the difference in every move Tsuna and Enma take.  
  
Harmony doesn’t ask any more than gravity does, but it doesn’t let you question either. Skies are greedy bastards, to a one, and they reach out with their flame like a thousand grasping fingers, but unlike Earth, Sky does not grab those they want and drag them in.  
  
Those reaching fingers sing to the flame of those they want, sing out all the praises of their master, and they sing until they resonate with the flame they touch, until Sky and other are singing point-counterpoint together without a thought. And that can be…very difficult to resist.  
  
Enma likely does not know why he has fallen so easily into Tsuna’s orbit, but Reborn can almost hear it, the way Tsuna only refines their harmony over contact.  
  
One day soon, Tsuna is going to look behind him, and see all the underworld kneeling. He’s not going to know what to do with them all, but he’s going to have them anyway. Reborn tilts his head back, and closes his eyes, listening to the wild keen of his own Flame, and Tsuna’s descant, as high and sweet as a summer dawn.  
  
Skies are always the best at what they do, even if they don’t know what it is they’re doing.


	45. ace!tsuna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna, philia

It’s not that Tsuna doesn’t understand how sex plays into mafia politics, it’s just…  
  
Well, okay, it’s just that he doesn’t understand it. The mechanics, yes, he’s aware of that, it’s just, he doesn’t understand _why_  people get so wrapped up in chasing Chrome or Kyoko or Takeshi or Mukuro that it becomes so easy to snap the threads of their organizations. It’s never made sense to him.  
  
He loves his Guardians, and he loves his Family, but he’s never understood their need to have incredibly loud, furniture-breaking sex at all hours of the day.   
  
He and Mukuro are alike in this. Mukuro thinks of sex as a weapon, and Tsuna doesn’t think of sex at all, but the bed in Tsuna’s suite is big enough for two.  
  
They dream together, and Tsuna has never found a need for further intimacy than this–the way they both fit on the bed, rarely cuddled together, but sharing the heat of the blankets, the way Mukuro changes from child to adult, from Tsuna’s twin to an owl to an unremarkable young man neither of them have met but Mukuro remembers.  
  
Reborn mutters dark things from the bedroom doorway about Tsuna needing an heir, and Tsuna replies with sarcastic words about sperm donation as he fixes his tie, while Mukuro buries his laughter in the pillow and occasionally brings Tsuna files about possible surrogates.  
  
It’s weird, but it works, and that’s always been the way of the Vongola.


	46. cursed world, uncursed arcobaleno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reborn, fury

Reborn has never hated Checkerface more than in this instant. The administrator of the Trinisette had lifted the Curse of Mortality from only his chosen seven, and it has left Reborn at his student’s side, unimaginably old and only just passing the prime of his life, while Tsuna chokes on the blood in his lungs.  
  
 _We cursed you_ , Checkerface said, when he handed over the pacifiers. _We were jealous older siblings and we cursed you to die before you could achieve anything. Humans lived for so much longer before that…but you used your Flames recklessly and you poked your noses where you weren’t wanted, so we bound you to a generation. Twenty-five years. Thirty at most. Just long enough to ensure your species would live on._  
  
Reborn bares his teeth, presses his Boss’s cold hand to his forehead and wishes that there was some way to pass Checkerface’s _gift_  to the only person he has ever thought was worthy of it.  
  
 _The joke was on us though, because as soon as we completed our vengeance on you, we began to die. And so we had to find a way to release the curse for enough of you to keep the Earth alive._ Checkerface had smiled, under that metal mask, and shrugged self depricatingly. _You’re lucky. You won’t die for years. Decades. With the pacifiers, you could live to be several centuries_.  
  
Tsuna’s breathing is ragged, and his pulse is too fast under Reborn’s fingers.  
  
 _What’s so fucking_ lucky _about this,_ Reborn thinks, blinking back tears as he listens to his last, best student die because of an extinct people’s jealousy.


	47. mist!tsuna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reborn, crowning achievement

There’s no last hope for the Vongola, Reborn realizes, as Sawada Tsunayoshi leaps up, reborn on light feet with indigo flames burning on his brow.  
  
The world _twists_  around this last descendent of Giotto Taru, though, and Reborn watches as the boy stalks down the street, his clothes left behind, not that anyone notices. It’s taking a great deal of Reborn’s ability to remain unaffected by the illusion the boy projects without thinking, and as he watches, the boy takes little more than a leaf and a wildflower and convinces them to be a rose and a slip of parchement. As Tsunayoshi focuses, the illusion becomes more and more real, until even Reborn can’t see where it ends.  
  
The boy tucks the rose into Sasagawa Kyoko’s schoolbag, and then the effect of the Dying Will bullet wears off, leaving him, clad only in his boxers, sitting confusedly in the street.  
  
Passersby laugh, but Reborn considers the situation as he approaches. Primo’s line has thrown a Mist strong enough to fool even an Arcobaleno. Already, Tsunayoshi’s awakened flames are reaching out to the world, trying to impose the boy’s will.  
  
It is always possible for a mafia boss to not bear the Sky flame. It’s rare, after all. And Tsunayoshi is a Mist who will one day haveenough power to tell the world _this is what will be_ , and have the world obey.  
  
Reborn bares his teeth in a smile. It’s not the assignment Nono thought it would be, but this will be an even greater challenge. To present a Mist as a Sky, to fool the whole underworld? Yes, Reborn thinks this will be a fine way to end his career as a home tutor.


	48. khr/bh6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hiro yamada, dangerous to know

Hiro first sees the man on the outer edges of a botfight crowd, and doesn’t think much of him. The man’s a redhead, which is odd in San Fransokyo, and he’s wearing a _suit_  which means someone’s probably going to pick his pocket. Still, adults without common sense are _not_  Hiro’s problem, and he puts the stranger out of his mind in favor of hustling large amounts of money out of his most recent target.  
  
But the man keeps cropping up around the edges of the botfighting circuits, sometimes accompanied by a blond in mechanics overalls, sometimes by a guy who looks too young for his grey hair, in an even more expensive looking suit. All three of them are dangerous in a way that renders them not-quite out of place.  
  
Hiro’s not sure what’s going on, until he’s presenting his microbots at San Fransokyo Tech’s expo, and all three appear, trailing behind another man in a suit, who wears a soft smile and carries himself like the most dangerous people Hiro ever saw in the dark corners of his city. No one else seems to notice, but then again, most of these nerds haven’t spent years deliberately finding the most dangerous parts of the city to play games in.  
  
They all watch, interested, but on the fringes. Occasionally the blond and the redhead confer quietly, and murmur something to the newest man in a suit, before all four of them move on. The grey haired man never says anything, just stands at the leader’s right hand and watches everything with an unimpressed gaze.  
  
Hiro watches them, for as long as he can, but eventually he has his own presentation to make, and he dives into it, into the microbots. It’s nerve-wracking at first, but he knows his pitch, and he knows his tech, and it gets easier as he goes on. And he’s _good_ , they’re cheering for him at the end, and he’s _accepted_ , to San Fransokyo Tech.  
  
When he finally looks up, the strange men in suits are considering the pile of deactivated microbots, and both the redhead and the blond look fascinated.  
  
They mutter something to their leader, who nods, and looks away from the microbots, directly at Hiro.  
  
For a second, all Hiro can notice is that the man’s eyes are almost orange.  
  
  
Later, after the fire, Hiro will wake up in the hospital, and the man in the suit will introduce himself as Sawada Tsunayoshi, and say that he was the one who carried Hiro to the ambulance. He leaves a business card, slick, orange and gold and pale blue, with an intricate crest and a cell phone number. Hiro doesn’t touch it until the day after he’s discharged. When he turns it over, he finds one sentence, written in a precise hand.   
  
 _Who set the fire?_  
  
He calls the number the next day.


	49. 27X king and lionheart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tsuna/xanxus, loyalty bought and paid for

The really annoying thing about Sawada is that he doesn’t seem to  _realize_ what he’s doing to the Boss. Which means he wanders into the Varia mansion, all five foot  _nothing_ of him, naps in the Boss’s office, calls the Boss out to spar, makes stupidly insightful comments about the Boss and the Ninth, complains about the scum the Ninth has hired, and then wanders out again. Presumably to fuck up even more of the Ninth’s people for whatever reason he has this week. It’s bizarre, and it unsettles everyone, but especially the Boss.

As soon as the front doors close behind Sawada, Xanxus turns into a hair-trigger  _mess_ , and Squalo is  _done with this shit._ It was bad enough when the Boss was all weird after the Ring Scramble, half starry-eyed (or as starry eyed as Xanxus gets), and half furious. Now he’s confused, starry-eyed, furious and scared, which means that he’s taking it all out on the rest of the Varia. Levi nearly  _cried_ last time, which, whatever,  _Levi_ , but still.

The next time this happens, Squalo’s planning on dragging the brat into a dark corner and  _making_ him stop this, because the last thing the Varia needs is a leader who’s off-balance. If this game Sawada is playing gets any of them killed, Squalo is going to take it out of the brat’s  _hide_ , and damn the brat’s Guardians. _ **  
**_

Only it turns out, the next time Sawada comes over, that he seems to be done playing whatever game it was.

The kid showed up, and, like usual, lured the Boss out of his office and into one of the training rooms meant to deal with Flame. Squalo lurks outside once they enter about the second hour—someone will run out of tricks soon, and he wants to catch Sawada immediately after, when the brat presumably won’t have his defenses up.

The crashing stops almost half an hour after Squalo takes up his position, and it shouldn’t be long before the two of them dust themselves off and wander out. 

Except Squalo’s still standing there ten minutes later, waiting for them to leave, and at that point it’s just  _annoying_. And no one ever called Squalo particularly  _respectful_ , so he pries the door open, because if the Sawada brat is  _up to something_ , Squalo needs to be prepared.

Looking into the training room, he barely holds in a whistle. The Boss is more than capable of devastating training rooms on his own, but he and Sawada together turn previously pristine rooms into complete wrecks. Squalo can’t find a square foot that’s not charred or cratered in some fashion. But as for what the boss and the Sawada brat are  _doing_ —

Well. The brat won this round, if the way he’s straddling the Boss’s chest is any indication. The brat’s Flame isn’t burning, but Squalo can feel his Will turning the air heavy.

“I do mean what I say at the main house,” Sawada says, his Italian crisp as ever, with only the faintest hint of an accent.

“Is that supposed to mean anything to me?” Xanxus asks, voice full of acid.

Sawada leans closer, one hand falling to the ground by the Boss’s head for balance.

“I have never tolerated, and will never tolerate insults to members of my Family. I thought it was important to clarify that with some members of the Ninth’s people.”

 _Clarify_ , oh yes, Squalo understands now. Sawada’s been  _clarifying things_ with a lot of the Ninth’s people. Suddenly, messily, and all over the place. Belphegor’s been keeping lists of the people Sawada’s been fucking up and laughing more than usual.

“What the fuck are you doing, Sawada?” Xanxus says, and he sounds tired, suddenly. Squalo clenches his left hand, nails biting into skin.

The brat leans closer, and the weight of his Will suddenly intensifies.

“Was I not clear, Xanxus?” His voice is soft as snowfall and unyielding as steel. “You. Are.  _Mine._ ”

The Boss makes a low noise, and Squalo steps out of the doorway, because now? Now things are probably going to calm down in the mansion, and Squalo knows when he’s intruded on the Boss’s business enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaand, that's a wrap. Pretty sure that's everything not part of a long-running au that I can scrape off of the tag. Now to get back to those prompts I've been ignoring for two weeks. Oy. And hunt down everything that missed tagging. Ugh.
> 
> Let me know if there's anything up with a chapter, or if something doesn't look right. I posted these....very quickly.
> 
> ([come visit](http://www.nathanielwsninski.tumblr.com))


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